


the fallen angel and the ravenous beast

by ephelid



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hunter X Hunter Big Bang, Minor Character Death, child!chrollo, child!feitan, children neglect, hxhbb, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 06:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11007591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephelid/pseuds/ephelid
Summary: Growing up in Meteor City means facing dangers no child should confront. Chrollo knows every peril and is afraid of none, not even the legendary Ravenous Beast, peculiarly strong and fierce, that hides from the rest of the world in a place where a lone life is a short life.But legends aren’t supposed to bleed when they’re cut, they don’t have a mouth to speak, they don’t have a name, a past, or a thirst for bond.While his new friend slowly learns trust and affection again, Chrollo discovers that not every beast is a monster, and that real dangers don’t always come from where they’re expected.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my contribution as a part of the hxh Big Bang 2017. I hope you'll like it!

Children stories of Meteor City were made of mud, hunger, shadows, and blood. Their songs whisper loss, death, fear, and revenge. Their princesses screamed curses, their angels abducted babies, and their clawed fairies craved flesh.

Every child knew the story of the Choking Hand that grew in your back, that silently reached for your face from behind, covered your mouth and nose until you died without a sound. Every kid sang the Rat King song, who’d send an army of rats to devour you in your sleep if you didn’t offer him your last bite of meat. They told the story of the Ravenous Beast, devourer of babies and young children, that couldn’t be seen until you felt its poisonous breath on the back of your neck. The youngsters sang the Blood Weepers’ song, who abducted children on their tenth birthday to turn their bones into flutes. The stories kept the children’s fears away..They were their warnings and their lessons, their comforts and their lullabies, their toys and their plushies. It was all they could bring along with them in their dreams, and for many of them, it was all they had.

 _“Crying in shadows, with ruby like tears wept_ _  
_ _The angels appeared while small children slept…”_

 

Chrollo was whispering the Blood Weepers’ melody on his way for a quick errand in the shanty town. It was the storm season and it had rained hard this night. Drops were still running on the corrugated roofs, and the neighbors were chatting under the eaves. Chrollo’s bare feet slipped on the wet boards thrown over the street holes and dirt, and splashed in the tiny stream of rain and used water that murmured below. “Watch out kid!” he heard, and he adroitly dodged the soapy water a neighbor threw by their door. Freshly washed clothes were suspended between the shacks, and Chrollo jumped to slap a white sheet under the outraged swears of its owner.

Chrollo liked the days after hails. Everyone in the outer districts took advantage of the extra water to do the laundry, and the lanes were attired with colorful fabrics and fresh smells. A feverish agitation kept everyone busy - here a roof was damaged, there the rain flooded a shack - and the bands of orphan children were rushing to bring over a handful of nails, a piece of tarpaulin, or just giving a hand for exchange of a meal, a place to sleep, a shirt not too used, or a basin of clear rain water and a bit of soap.

Chrollo didn’t join them today. He waved in and out the lanes, ran up the main street, jumped on the roofs below, escaped the grumpy man who was tired of kids jumping on his roof, and quickly reached the commercial street. By way of street, it was just an open space sprinkled of corrugated iron canopies supported by wooden posts that sold cheap pieces of metal, fabric, strings, or anything useful that they picked off the rubbish. A little brazier exhaled an appetising scent of perfectly roasted rats and seagulls. A nervous poacher was discreetly proposing fresh fish from the lake. Orphan kids were trying to sell tin cans of rain water.  Every storekeeper loudly praised the value of their merchandise and how cheap it was, they’d swap it just for a raw fabric, a wool ball, ten nails (non rusted), an apple, 10 000 jennies, or half a meteorian coin.

Chrollo was starving, and the scent of perfumed rat (was it herbs he smelled?) was terribly tempting, but he was pretty good at hunting rats anyway and could get some for free. The fruits looked like a less appetizing but more reasonable option. He knew it was good for his health, and his growth. He read it in a book Crab gave him.

He asked the merchant for the price. One coin for three apples. That was expensive. Fruits were rare in meteor because trees can’t grow well on its polluted ground. Chrollo considered to steal some himself, but fruit trees were deep into the inner city. He’d had to run long, and maybe couldn’t even approach the orchard, for his clothes and lack of shoes would tell on him as an outer kid, or even a Wanderer.  The inner city inhabitants were relatively richer; all the inner kids had a family and they went to the only meteorian school. Even if they had little, they still had more than the other Meteorians. They grabbed hold of their small privileges and rarely felt like sharing. Chrollo didn’t want to risk arrest for apples only. Apples wouldn’t bring him as much as energy he’d spend to get them. Kids in Meteor City were good at these kind of calculation.

He was staring at the coins in his palm, like he was counting them again, as if he could have made some mistake going to “four.” He could never know when and how much Crab would bring him, so he couldn’t know if he was contemplating his day’s wealth, week’s budget, or month’s misery. He was standing as close as possible to the brazier to take the most of the heat. The wind was still cold and moist, and rustled his long bang. Chrollo flattened his hair on his forehead and shivered. He only had his shirt to cover him.

He was so concentrated on his calculations that he startled when a child came upon him, very excited and speaking so quickly that Chrollo couldn’t understand what he wanted. The kid was a bit younger than him, maybe eight, and he looked like a Wanderer. Chrollo never met him once in his life, but wasn’t surprised to be accosted. It happened all the time. He was easy to approach and get along with almost everyone, including adults. He was often under the impression that he didn’t know many people, but everybody knew him.

Chrollo just patiently waited for the boy to recover his breath and a semblance of calm, so he could understand what he was repeating : “You’re the child who knows how to read?”

Chrollo noded. The little boy beamed, and finally exploded, “Clémence cut the beast!”

“What beast?”

“The Ravenous Beast!” yelled the kid. The merchants and buyers turned to them in curiosity and incredulity.

Nonetheless, Chrollo believed the kid immediately. Clémence wouldn’t have sent a kid to him for anything less. Another piece of knowledge that Chrollo took from books was that every story had a part of truth.

He was surprised, though. Despite her name, Clémence was merciless and tougher than adult men. This beast must be as strong and hasty as the story told to survive her notorious knife. She was only fourteen, but already had a solid reputation. She was the head of a gang of children, all much younger than her, and her protector. She usually ignored Chrollo. Kids who already had a protector weren’t her business.

“Clémence wants something from me?” he asked.

“Yes! She says you can recognize prints of animals that don’t live here usually. You’ll know what to do. You read a lot of books about monsters, she says.”

“To do what? And I only read two.”

The little boy rolled his eyes. “With the beast, of course! We cornered it, but Clémence is wounded.”

“You mean we can see it?”

“Yes!” shouted the boy, literally shaking with excitement.

Chrollo looked at the tempting food and the coins in his hand. He pressed his growling stomach. Finally followed the little boy out of the district, to the dump, where there were no shacks, no shed, nothing but the crude remain of the world’s rejections.

They run passed the Ghosts: adults in protective clothes who picked out the most dangerous trash, who earned their nickname to their white protection and their extremely low life expectancy. They ran up dump hills, they passed alongside the secondary water reservoir, and finally Chrollo could see from a distance the colorful beanie Clémence wore no matter the weather, that was almost as famous as her knife.

Clémence was sat on a rusted container and didn’t look well. Her left face was bruised and puffed, her left eye was turning black and her lips were cut. She was lifting up half of her beanie: a shapeless piece of wool that used to be orange that hardly contained her impressive mass of black hair. Chrollo noticed, a bit amused, that even in this situation, when a child had to press a piece of cold metal to prevent a massive bump on her head, she didn’t take it off completely.

She was as - usual surrounded - by her protected kids. Chrollo’s little guide blended with them, yelling “I found him! I found him!” and all shushed him. They looked both frightened and excited. An inflamed debate was ongoing. More than a debate, it sounded like a series of accusations. “You go, you’re too weak to survive anyway”; “No way, you stole my rat last week, you traitor!”;”you mean and useless, I don’t care if the beast eat you!”;”You’re blind, why would you be afraid of darkness?”; ”Why can’t just wait Clémence feel better? She’ll kill the beast and we’ll eat it.” Obviously, they all had the firm certainty of all the children in the world, that it was possible to whisper and yell in the same time.

Chrollo turned to Clémence, “What happened?” he asked with his normal voice.

It was just as if the beast had loomed. The children started, and shushed him. “Lower! Don’t anger the beast!” signed a little girl with authority. They pointed at a kind of cave dug into the dirt.

That happened sometimes. Bad weather and winds weakened the detritus hills that collapsed on itself, and sometimes created these caves. They were dangerous, for the ceiling can cede any time, and stinky, with all the humidity accumulated. No one could live in there. Except a beast.

Clémence swallowed a can of rainwater that was hold by a little boy, and answered with a lower voice, “This little bastard. Robbing my traps for weeks. Stole three rats today. But I heard it. After the rain this night, hard to be silent, if you don’t know the right paths. I ambushed it. But it’s so fast, so strong. It saw me. And it hit me,” she said raising her hand to her sore face. “Just one hit. Almost knocked-out. I just cut it, and it _screamed,_ damn, it screamed.” The kids around except for the imperious girl shivered at this memory. “ I told the kids to follow the blood trail. Stops here. And too weak to fight. Not against that. Not now.”

Chrollo looked more carefully at the cave entrance. A blood streak was stretched to the thick shadows inside. “How does it look like?”

Clémence initiates a head shook but quickly stopped, grinning in pain. “Hard to say. Didn’t have the time.”

“How do you know it’s the beast if you didn’t see it clearly?” he asked again.

The imperious little girl rolled her eyes. “Did you pay attention? The _scream_. It’s the scream they hear at night. You sure hear it too.”

Chrollo noded. When the wind came from the east, he could hear it too. The terrifying howling of the beast, charged with fury, anger, and loneliness.

“So, mister bookish,” said Clémence. “You’re fond of stories. We cornered one. What do you propose.”

“I’ll enter,” he said without hesitation.

The children held their breath. The little girl asked around what he just said. “You can’t do that!” she signed when she was told. “The beast gonna eat you! Eat you _alive_!”

“It’s wounded and trapped, it will try to frighten me, I don’t think it will attack me,” explained Chrollo.

“And if it does?” asked Clémence.

“Well I’ll die knowing.”

Clémence shrugged. “As you please.“

Chrollo gave her the four coins, ”Take this. I won’t need it if I die.”

Clémence glanced at it with her working eye, “Are you fucking kidding me.”

The jaw of the little girl fell off, “Is this… money? Real money?”

Chrollo nodded. A rare privilege in Meteor City. Everything landed here one day or another, including currencies. But wealth hoarded outside Meteor meant nothing. Only the meteorian currency was allowed, and gold and diamonds weren’t edible. Many rich people sought refuge here trying to disappear from the law, in general for the exact reason they became rich, and discovered that the Council of Meteor had a very specific idea of the word “equality.” They couldn’t bear that foreigners took advantage of their poverty to rule them. Their controlled misery was also their freedom.

”You’re so weird,” muttered Clémence, but she pocketed the money anyway.

But Chrollo didn’t hear her. He was already up to the dent entrance.

He was trying to maintain a cold observation, but it was hard. He did believe a weakened animal would try nothing more than chase him away, but it was a logical deduction and - for all he knew - animals didn’t care about logic.

He had heard about the Beast for so long. The south Wanderers were the first ones being attacked. They sought refuge in the nearby districts and spread the story. They talked about the devastated south areas, the plundered henhouses, the eggs crashed, the rats eaten and deserting the area, the menacing famine; and above all, the crying abandoned babies that nothing remained of but a spot of blood by the time adults found them; the missing children, disappeared without a scream, without an alarm, until they were found dozens miles away, the bloody shreds of their clothes and their cleaned bones carved by teeths marks.

Chrollo had found one of these child corpses by the lake two years ago, and even if he had seen dead bodies before, this sight had been repulsive enough to turn his stomach. He felt a vague nausea at this memory, while he bent over to look into the dent’s darkness.

The ceiling was low, and the cave deep. It was cold, humid and stinking like the dead corpse of a giant animal. Chrollo felt like he was entering the maw of a monster. The wind whistled between the sharp cracks in the walls like a difficult breathing. Chrollo listened carefully. No other sound beside the dent breathing, no move but his own shadow. He stepped inside. A whistle. He froze. A stone hit his forehead with a devilish precision.

That… was unexpected.

Chrollo rubbed his forehead and understood he made a easy target by standing backlit. He had to move forward deeper in the darkness.

“Hello?” he said, “ I mean you no harm.”

He escaped the second stone, now that he expected it and his eyes were accommodated to the darkness. “You’re seriously wounded. Do you know the story of the Choking Hand?”

Not a sound, neither a stone. “It’s a story from the Wanderers. If you’re cut, a strange hand slide into the wound, runs under your skin, grows in your back, and will kill you if you don’t cut one of your own limb. Its compelled to replace it, and become inoffensive. It’s a story about gangrene. It teaches children that cutting off their limbs can save their life. It’s important. Every cut can turn to gangrene here. If you stay in this moist and dirty cave with an untreated injury, you’ll die.”

Chrollo escaped the third stone, but not the fourth one that came right after, and hit his shoulder.

“I’ll be right back with all you need to heal.”

The scream made him startle. He crouched down and covered his ears. It was unbearable, and the cave amplified the sound to an insupportable level. Chrollo felt his arm hair bristling. And it stopped like it started.

“Errr.. O... Okay.” stuttered Chrollo, his breath slightly shortened. He walked backward, attentive to any sign of attack.

He left and blinked at the sudden light. The kids were staring at him like he was a ghost. Most of them still had fingers in their ears. Chrollo walked to Clémence, ”Well I’m alive. Bring me back my money.”

“What money,” she said tit for tat.

Chrollo smiled. “Fair enough. Well, I’m going to the pharmacy. Do you need me to bring you something to heal you properly? Unless you’re ready to cut your own head off? You might be used to it now. “

“Fair enough,” she snorted, while handing him two coins. He was sure he gave her four, but said nothing.

He didn’t get along with Clémence that much, but he respected her like he respected everyone who was able to discern truth in stories. Clémence was only eight when she fell into a dirt pit, got stuck two days, then had been found again with a severely injured left arm and a fever that meant no good. She cut her arm off herself two days after, survived, and replaced it with a mechanism of leather and sharp blades that justified her reputation. As long as Chrollo knew, the Beast was the first entity to survive it.

The Beast or whatever that was.

Chrollo pocketed the two coins and started to walk back to his district. He heard Clémence behind him, “Did you see it. How does it look like. How can I kill it.”

 _“It has two hands, uses tools and likes stories”_ was what Chrollo thought. What he said was: “I don’t know. Where is the pharmacy today?”

Clémence shrugged, showing her ignorance.

The pharmacy was a big wheelbarrow with a fan sat on top protecting from sun and rain cases full of phials, bottles, dubious alcohol, soaps, bandages, and dressings. It was pushed by a man versed in medicine and his family, handing their knowledge in and there around the outer city. When Chrollo finally found him, the pharmacist asked him by whom the treatments were needed.

“Two kids,” answered Chrollo without a hesitation. “One is hurt at the head.”

“And the other?”

Chrollo thought fast. Two stones had been threw one right after the other, both with precision, so it wasn’t wounded on its arm. It could see and aim well, so not the head. Chrollo almost slapped his forehead in comprehension. Of course. Clémence cut it _after_ it hit her, she said she was almost knock-out, so she fell.

“The lower leg,” he said with assurance.

“Hum, a cut on lower leg bleeds a lot, in general, maybe it’s not as severe as it seems,” said the pharmacist, handing him bandages and phials. Chrollo, for a mysterious reason, felt relieved. “But if the bleeding doesn’t stop, bring the guy here. My wife will take care of them,” he said pointing a woman with vivid pink hair in the back, waving bandages with dexterity, with her little girl as alike as two peas in a pod who watched her work with concentration.

“Your wife is the best, she saved my foot. Thank you mister, good afternoon madam, bye Machi!” Crab had told him how important politeness could be, and Chrollo put effort into remembering names.

He was out of breath and more hungry than ever when he came back to the den. Clémence had carefully kept the kids away from the cave. Chrollo gave her an ointment, a phial of disinfectant, a little dressing for her lips, cut the soap in two and gave her one half.

“What will you do with the second half,” she asked. Chrollo already had noticed her specific way of speech. She never asked questions, she ordered you to answer.

“It’s for me. My commission.”

“You took a lot,” she said eyeing at his paper bag.

“The pharmacist didn’t have change, I had to take for two coins.”

Clémence looked at him deeply in his eyes, with a bright look that made him uncomfortable. “You know the beast had eaten many kids, right.”

“Right.”

“You know it leaves our reserve dry. It’s starving my kids. It’s dangerous. It needs to die.”

“I know.”

“Don’t try to approach it. It will kill you.”

“I’m not under your responsability. By the way, the pharmacist said if you faint or vomit, you’ll probably die.”

“Won’t happen,” she said, standing up. She staggered a little, but kept her balance. “I owe you one.” By these words she recognized that Chrollo was allowed to ask her a favor later. It was a tacit rule in Meteor, and Clémence always respected her words.

She gathered the kids and led them to her territory, where nobody but them were allowed to come into. Chrollo suddenly thought the Beast was pretty courageous to steal Clémence’s food. Or really hungry.

He came by the den entrance, bending over. “They’re gone, now. You can show up.” He didn’t expected the Beast to do so, but it cost nothing to try.

Not a move in the darkness. Neither a stone. “Here. You can throw stones, so you can hold things. You listen to stories, so you can understand instructions. I brought you soap, you need to wash your hands first. And disinfectant. It burns, don’t swallow it or pour it in your eyes or anything. The dressing needs to be changed every day. Tell me if you need something else.” Chrollo didn’t expect an answer either. But he wanted to know if the beast could speak. “I’m coming back tomorrow.” He didn’t plan to say that, it just uttered by itself. But he surprisingly realized he meant it.

He walked backward slowly, and hid behind the rusted container where Clémence sat a minute ago. He waited long. When he started to feel impatient, he recounted his time tables because Crab told him it was important, and then he thought about the story he made in his head about a family of twelve children that lived adventures and the adventures always changed. He started to feel pins and needles in his legs, he really wanted to move but forced himself to stay still. And it was rewarded. After maybe an hour, a little blurry grey shadow troubled the darkness at the entrance. It lasted the time of a blink. But the bag with aids had disappeared.

Chrollo was feeling light and happy when he came back home - came back to the place he called home. It was nothing but three walls and a roof, and a heavy curtain as a door. It was just a separation in space, barely more tangible than the words “inside” and “outside”, and didn’t mean anything else. It protected him from the wind, but not cold; from the sun, but not heat. But it was a space of his own, and it was a luxury. A luxury he owed to Crab.

Chrollo had been found as a baby, floating on a little raft of braided twigs in the middle on the old main water reservoir. Some mothers did this, to be sure their child will be found quickly, and to protect them from the rats and insects. Nothing explained why Crab decided to take care of Chrollo. It wasn’t a thing from people here. Children organized on their own. They were called “the Wanderers” because they lived in the dump itself, outside every district, even the more eccentered, moving from place to place according to their needs. Sometimes a child was adopted, but it was rare. Locals who were ready to start a family in this place often already had a family of their own.

Chrollo had lived the Wanderer life, fed by pregnant women, then by his peers, until he reached four. Then Crab took him along with him in what Chrollo called “home.” He didn’t know how Crab called it. He didn’t know many things about Crab. He didn’t even know how he lost his pinkies and ring fingers, giving to his hands the shape of pincers. Chrollo didn’t even know his real name, or what he was doing all day.

But he sure knew what he was drinking. When he entered the hut, the stench of alcoholic sweat seized his throat. Crab was already snoring on the table. Chrollo smiled, and covered him with a curtain. He was relieved. Crab wasn’t pleasant to be around when he was drunk, and he was always drunk.

The hut was big enough for a small table, a stool, and a crate pushed under the table that Chrollo used as a chair when Crab was at home. There was also his bed, a mattress put right on the beaten earth, that was already too small when he was six. Crab didn’t have one. He hardly slept at home. Weeks could pass without Chrollo seeing him.

Chrollo silently opened the crate. Under the high pile of worthless foreigner banknotes that Crab kept for whatever reason, a couple of hard corn biscuits were going stale in the bottom. Chrollo knew he’d feel hunger more cruelly if they ate them. It was still early, but the sun was sinking, he couldn’t hunt, so he’d rather go to bed with an empty stomach.

Chrollo took the candle under his mattress, and a book he had already read seventeen times that missed a dozen of pages. Chrollo liked to imagine what happened during the missing pages. He built up stories where the kids in the books temporarily lost their home, their parents, and had to live in dump, with no one to love them, and he felt asleep and dreamed of the Ravenous Beast.

____________________________________________________

He was awaken by an appetizing scent on the hunt. He started to salivate before he even opened his eyes. He swallowed, his stomach rumbling.

“Meat.”

He jumped on his feet and sat on the crate, eagerly staring at Crab who was chewing a rat leg. Chrollo’s tongue was playing in his mouth, as he was already eating.

“What are you looking at, with this stupid face?” asked Crab.

“Are you going to eat the whole rat?”

“Maybe.”

Chrollo waited. He hated when Crab did that. He knew they had to put him in a good mood.

“It’s a big rat. Nice catch,” he flattered him.

“I only need to take it off the floor. It was in a box, behind the curtain. All clean, already cleared. The box was closed by a bandage, though. Drenched with blood. Disgusting,” he said, sucking a bone.

Chrollo blinked. “It’s mine.”

Crab snorted. “What next? I found it, so it’s mine.”

“It’s a gift.”

“Yep, a gift from the gods for the good man I am to deal with you,” ended Crab. But he left the back of the rat for Chrollo who pounced on it. He ate it all in a few bites, and regretted he did so fast when he finished. It was too little. It was always too little. Licking his lips, he looked around in the hope there would be another rat. Clémence had said the beast stole three. But obviously it was all.

Crab chucked three books on the table, without a word. Chrollo looked at the covers. One was an old crime fiction, the second the user’s guide for a water heater, and Chrollo squinted on the third. “I can’t read this language.”

Crab shrugged. “Then learn it or use the book to light the fire.”

“Do you want me to tell you what happened in the fiction?”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t read.”

“If it interested me, I learnt,” he said, picking from his pocket an exhausted harmonica, drawing on whining notes. It was the signal the conversation was over. Chrollo held back a sigh of relief. Crab hated to talk, but hated it even more when Chrollo didn’t try. Adults were mysterious.

He took the biscuits off the crate, ate them quickly, and ran out the hunt. A gust of wind almost pushed him back. A solid storm was on the way. He crossed the outer districts, passed the secondary water reservoir and rushed to the beast dent, entering with no care, and shouted, “Thanks for the rat!” He waited a couple of seconds, catching his breath. He didn’t say Crab had eaten the most. “It’s very kind of you.” And indeed, it was. In Meteor City, when a service was done, and the helped one said nothing, the benefit was lost and nothing should be expected in return. The Beast didn’t say anything, so….

“Wait,” understood Chrollo. “You can’t speak, can you?”

Chrollo listened. Not a sound in the dent, but the furious winds whistles. Maybe the beast was gone. Maybe it wasn’t even their dent, they just seek refuge in it when they saw it. Chrollo brushed his long bang back to clear his eyes and looked deeper in the darkness. A stormy wind was rising, and the difficult breath of the cave was even more strident. The sun was on his back, unlike the evening before, his long shadow was walking on the walls, he could see more clearer, and he guessed, in the darkest side, two reflections that were probably eyes.

“Are you a beast for real? You know the language here, for you understood my explanations yesterday. But you can’t speak. Is it your mouth? Your maw?”

A muffled groan came from the darker side.

“Yeah, I understand, it’s none of my business. Sorry I didn’t mean to be rude.”

The groan slowly faded down. Chrollo sat leg crossed at the entrance.

“Why do you scream at night?”

Chrollo let a pause. For politeness, since the Beast cared about it.

“I used to scream too when I was little. Especially at stormy nights, when Crab wasn’t here. Crab is the guy who gives me food and sometimes sleeps at the same place as me. I still don’t like thunder, but at least I stopped screaming.”

He looked at the darkest place. The eyes had moved a little aside. The vague fury silhouette was hard to be deciphered. Chrollo smiled : “I don’t know how you found out where I live, but now that you know, you can sleep at home sometimes. You can come tonight, a storm is coming, I’d like to have a little company. Crab probably won't be here, he never sleeps at home two nights in a row, and even if he does, I don’t think he would notice your presence before the morning.” Now that he was thinking about it, he never saw Crab having a sober sleep. “There is no door at my place, as you saw it. I know how scary it is to let yourself go to sleep when you don’t know where the danger will come from. I won’t be scared of you.” He said the last sentence to be polite, and realized he meant it. He wasn't afraid at all.

“I’m going to look for a thing or two to eat. Maybe I’ll push to the orchard. Do you know where the orchard is? Do you want fruits? Do you eat fruit? How are your teeth? Are they long and pointy, or large and flat? Or both? Can you show me your teeth if you can’t speak? I can recognize animals regimen by looking at their teeth. I read a book about it. Everybody outside Meteor seems to throw out their books. I wonder why.”

A stone flew far above his head, thrown in a bell curve, landing outside the dent. Chrollo understood, “You’re telling me to go. To the orchard, or to go in general because you don’t want to see me?”

Another stone rolled gently to Chrollo’s feet. He beamed and stood excitedly. “Okay, I’ll be right back with fruits! Do you want water too? It rained a lot lately, all the reservoirs may be full. You know where the reservoirs are? Do you have your own? The secondary one if not that far but with your damaged leg it may be difficult. Clémence has her own nearby but it’s not a good idea to steal her…” A stone flew in his direction, not with a lot of force, so Chrollo dodged it easily, but it was undoubtedly aiming his head. Chrollo giggled. “Ok, I get it, I’m going. Wait for me!”

Chrollo ran outside the dent, and came back a couple of seconds after. “I’m glad we’re friends!” he shouted, before running again.

In the dent obscurity, nothing was to be seen, but the shining reflection of black eyes, that blinked and moved ahead. A silhouette silently walked on three, dragging a leg, with fluid and quick gestures that imperceptibly rustled a thick fur of the exact color of the cave walls. The silhouette came closer to the dent entrance, keeping an eye out, unmoving, waiting, the sunrise carving shadows under their eyebrows, frown in circumspection.

____________________________________________________

There were stories, and there were legends.  Stories were about the present. They had no real beginning, no real end. They warned about danger, they expressed fears, stupefaction, they reminded the listeners that not everything in this world was understandable.

Legends were about the past. Legend lays in their end. A protagonist becomes a hero only if they die. An adventure becomes a saga when everyone is back home.

The Starving Beast would become a legend, when the dent, shaken by the stormy winds, would collapse on itself, not leaving any survivors.

 

 

 


	2. blood and bond

“The Beast is dead.”

Clémence heard the four words, whispered from mouths to ears, colored with different tones of voice: surprise, circumspection, excitement, joy; a rumor jostled by the furious wind.

Clémence knew rumors were like temporary stories, an expression of the moment, a way to distract oneself from worries, and with this major tempest rising, the kids had every reason to worry. So, after she settled a safe refuge for all of the children, she went out, ignoring their alerts and pleas. 

She wasn’t the girl to believe in stories, but she believed in who told them. So she wasn’t confounded in the least when she saw the dent collapsed on itself. The kids were right. No living form could have survived this.

But she had been a bit confused to see Chrollo there. He had three apples in his shirt rolled up as a pocket, standing still, insensitive to the furious winds, staring at the dent entrance, without a move, without a sound, without anything that could be read on his face.

Clémence approached him, unsure of what to do. She put her hand on his shoulder and he startled. An apple fell on the floor. A flash of lightning striped the lead colored sky.

“A tempest is rising,” she said, “you better get prepared.”

“I thought I got lost,” he answered, without taking his eyes out off the dent.

Clémence had no idea what he was talking about, so she just let him carry on.

“A storm can change the landscape so quickly. It accumulates hills of lighter dumps, or flatten uneven ground. I thought I could no longer find the dent. But there is no dent anymore.”

And he turned his back, just like that, and walked away. Clémence yelled after him,“You left an apple!”

Chrollo shrugged, “Just keep it. I have two others.”

“You need to stop doing that.”

“I take note.”

“Where are you going!”

“To sleep!” he answered without turning his face to her.

“You can’t!” shouted Clémence louder, as Chrollo’s silhouette was slowly vanishing into the dusty fog. “The storm is coming! You need to prepare!”

She never knew if he heard her or not.

____________________________________________________

    When Chrollo came back to the place he called home, the wind had already torn off the curtain they had as a door. The corrugated iron vibrated, and he wooden poles were groaning. A corner of the roof had been blown off and the first rain poured in. The shrug threatened to collapse, too. Chrollo regretted Crab wasn’t here. Maybe they could have consolidated it together. 

He laid on his bed, eyes open, looking through the opening. The agitation among the other Meteorians was palpable. They were running with chicks under their arms, a piglet, screaming names, trying to nail consolidating boards at the last minute. Children hands in hands followed in line behind their parents, or whatever adult who accepted to take care of them at the moment. 

Another day Chrollo would have given a hand, but today he didn’t feeling like it. The sky was clogged by lead clouds and quickly it turned as dark as night. Chrollo could no longer see outside and he just noticed that the panicked screams and hasty steps had faded away. Everyone should have reached an emergency shelter now. Including Crab. The cold wind rushed into his hut, made him shivered. He wrapped himself in his curtain and sneezed. And another sneeze echoed from under the table. 

Chrollo sat up. A flash of lightning outlined the silhouette of a child, squatted under the table, seeking protection from the wind behind the supply crate. He was staring at him with an intense and dark look, uncommonly bright.

Chrollo felt no surprise. Sense of property was blurry in Meteor, and hospitality was sacred. It wasn’t unusual that a homeless stranger sought refuge in one’s place in case of emergency. 

“Hello. My name is Chrollo. I don’t think I know you.”

He waited for an answer. A lightning strike and a crash of thunder rolled slowly before he could hear:

“Feitan.”

“Nice to meet you, Feitan.”

The other kid said nothing else. His head was tilted against the wall. He looked exhausted.

“Where do you come from, Feitan? I’ve never seen you, nor have I heard your name, and I never forget a name.”

The child remained silent. Chrollo rummaged under his mattress, looking for the amadou lighter and his candle. He tried to light it but the wind blew out the flame every time.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I have apples.”

The child groaned. Chrollo held his breath. “Sorry, I didn’t hear,” he lied.

The kid groaned again and Chrollo jumped to his feet. “You’re not dead! You’re not dead! I know this groan! You’re the beast! Except you’re not a beast. You’re a child. But you’re the beast! I worried, you know. I was sad.”

Chrollo crawled on all four under the table to join him. Feitan cringed, but said nothing.

“I’m happy you’re here. You left the dent before it collapsed, right? Do you know it collapsed? I’m glad you’re here because I hate storms and I like a little company. Do you like storms? I hate them. How old are you?”

Feitan slowly rose two open hands, then two fingers.

“Twelve? You’re older than me? You look so small. No offense,” he added when the child frowned at him. “Do you want an apple?”

Feitan rolled his head against the wall. He swallowed with difficulty. “Water,” he said with a croaking voice.

“Water? Sure, I have a lot of water,” said Chrollo reaching the demijohn. “All the reservoirs are already full, and are going to overflow and oh, I forgot.” He pushed a metallic basin outside the hut. “There, it’s about to rain a lot so I’ll take a bath. Do you want a bath? Do you take baths? I was about to do something. Oh, yeah, bring you water.”

He gave a plastic cup to Feitan who drank it so quickly he almost choked. “More,” he said, handing the glass to Chrollo who poured another one.

“Wow, you haven’t drank for a while. Don’t you have your own reservoir?”

Feitan took a couple of deep breathes. “I’m dying,” he said plainly.

A flash of lightning illuminated the hut, and for a second Chrollo could see his ringed eyes, his dry lips, and the sparks of sweat on his forehead.

“I’m going to touch you,” he warned. He put his hand on Feitan’s forehead, ignoring his jolt. Feitan’s hands waved to push him away. Chrollo caught one and checked the pulse at his wrist. “You have a fever. Did you heal your wound like I told you?”

Feitan nodded painfully.

“Let me see.”

With a groan of effort Chrollo lifted up the table, and leaned it against the entrance. Protected from the wind, the amadou lighter and the candle sat ablaze. Chrollo rolled up the pants’ leg, and carefully took the sticky bandages off. They were adhering to the wound and smelled weird. Chrollo approached the candle and examined the leg closely. 

“Is it… the…” Feitan hesitated, as if he couldn’t find his words. “... chock hand?”

“No, it’s not gangrenous, but it’s severely infected,” Chrollo answered. He took a towel and soaked it with cold water. “The wound is way deeper than I thought. It need to be stitched.” He applied the cold towel on Feitan’s forehead. “You may die indeed.”

He slipped his hands under Feitan armpits and helped him lie on the nearby bed. He took his piece of soap, washed his hands, and cleaned the wound. His skin was very hot and red all around. Feitan jolted and grinned in pain at every touch, but didn’t try to avoid them.

When he finished, Chrollo covered him with his curtain, and cooled the towel on his forehead down again that already had turned tepid.

“Take a rest. Try to sleep. I’ll take care of you.”

____________________________________________________

The storm lasted three days and two nights.

Meteor City stood on a plain, and was a plain itself. No building, no dirt hill was high enough to oppose the wind. The storms were the most violent in the area.

The wind tore off tons of dirt and projected it on shrugs, refugees, and people. It was safer to bury into the ground, with the risk that a hill of garbage would rise above your head, and the refuge became your grave.

No one would ever go outside under such weather conditions. So, when Machi took a look outside during a brief respite and saw Chrollo braving the blasts around her parents’ shelter, her immediate thought was he was lost and needed to be rescued.

Her parents grabbed the kid and pulled him down inside their underground refuge. They offered him water and supplies. 

“I’m fine,” he said. “I just need to learn how to put on a drainage tube, and the pommade you gave me for my foot. The potion against fever too.”

“Where are you wounded?” asked her mother, already ruffling his clothes.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” protested Chrollo. “It’s for a friend.”

Chrollo described precisely how the wound looked like, and Machi’s mother taught them how to heal it the best a beginner could. Chrollo had refused the mother’s proposition to go back out with him. Chrollo did his best impression of an adult tone and said he wouldn’t accept it if she got wounded or died because of a decision he made alone, he talked eloquently about responsibilities, so she resigned to stay. The relief on her husband’s face showed they weren’t the same kind of person.

“How will you pay?” asked the father, practical as Chrollo guessed.

“All I have is outside money.” Chrollo took three thick wads of bills out of his shirt . “It’s 30 000 000 jennies. It may be worth twelve coins. But if one day you want to go outside, it will be worth far more.”

The father frowned in disdain and Chrollo understood he’d have to be a little more convincing. “These pieces of paper can represent hundreds of pommades, or even meds. You could have them for almost nothing outside, and sell them here. This is the exact reason why the Council doesnt’t want to see this money around. You’ll be richer than you ever been.”

“Richer with worthless pieces of paper?”

Chrollo understood he started on the wrong way. The pharmacist family was already a little bit richer than the average Meteorian. They were respected. They were of course pretty healthy. They were a happy family. Chrollo didn’t know them well but had seen the father worry twice, the day when Machi felt in the main reservoir last year, even if she knew how to swim, and a few minutes ago, when his wife proposed to accompany him outside, even during a brief respite. Chrollo had misunderstood this man. He didn’t care about money. He cared about his family.

Chrollo looked at Machi who was blending a powder in a bowl while her mother poured in some boiling water. Chrollo recognized the strong scent of the pommade. “Your daughter is skilled,” he said.

“I know,” said the father with pride. “She’ll take over the pharmacy one day.”

“Or more. I guess you didn’t know how to sew meters of bandage so neatly in a couple of minute when you were nine years old.”

“True,” chuckled the father. “But she’s seven.”

“Really? She looks so mature!” It was true. He didn’t try to flatter the father this time. But it was a good thing anyway. “Her calm and focused temper are very sought after in surgery.”

“I know,” he sighed. “But she’ll never pass the Council test. She wasn’t born here, she was already three when we came. This birth law makes no sense. This is such a waste.”

“Who talked about the Council? Outside, all you have to do is to pay to study. Skilled as she is, it would just be like she’d buy her diploma in a store.”

He turned to her family, Machi pouring the liquid pomade in a pot without spilling a single dop. Chrollo heard him muttering :“Surgeon…”

“Unless you think that not being scammed on a pomad price is more important than your daughter’s future.”

The father presented his open palm “Deal.” Chrollo clapped his hand.

The little girl sewed a couple of meters of bandage with an impressive velocity, and blushed when Chrollo complimented her. Her parents tried to keep the child safe inside. They even offered him their hospitality, that wasn’t an empty phrase. But it was no use. Chrollo was determined.

“Let him go,” said Machi finally. “He’ll be fine.”

And much to Chrollo’s surprise, they listened to her, as if they were used to receiving good advice from her. He nodded to the little girl who was staring at him with an intense gaze as if she was trying to analyze every aspect of him, or trying to understand some uncommon phenomenon.

*********

Feitan’s fever lasted as long as the storm.

The shrug cracked and vibrated, the wind whistled angrily between the corrugated iron gaps, the table at the entry was regularly pushed inside and the rain poured down heavily. Eventually Chrollo put the table back on its feet and settled Feitan under, hoping it would protect him if his house collapsed.

Soon the candle was consumed, and the opaque sky didn’t let any sun rays pass through, but Chrollo took no rest in watching over Feitan. In his agitated sleep he was speaking a language Chrollo couldn’t understand. During his moment of consciousness, his sentences were choppy and difficult, the words slipped out from his mind and he got irritated. His elocution was weighted down by a thick accent, even if he understood Chrollo’s speech perfectly. He didn’t have many opportunities to practice, obviously.

The second day, a short lull allowed Chrollo to glean wads into the crate again to buy some food.  He succeeded to get some eggs from a foreigner who was more than happy to accept this worthless currency. The fallen and wounded fruits were exceptionally cheap and the merchant agreed to trade four for a ball of wool he stole in a deserted shrug. Thanks to the potion, Feitan’s fever had lowered and he was recovering his appetite. They both ate a lot and Chrollo told him the story of the Rat King. Feitan nodded off almost immediately, for his first calm sleep.

In the afternoon of the third day, the wind calmed down, a clean sky replaced the clouds, the wound stopped to suppurate and Feitan’s fever was definitely gone. It was also the day Crab showed up at the shrug, slipping his head by the entrance, asking if he was still alive. Chrollo confirmed and he went as he came. Chrollo couldn’t tell if he had seen Feitan or not, still lying under the table.

“I no like him,” was his commentary when it was obvious Crab was out of reach of his voice.

“You don’t even know him,” answered Chrollo. 

“So?”

“I didn’t think he’d scare you.”

“He not scaring me. I just no like him.”

Chrollo smiled. He had nothing to add.

Feitan sat up painfully, groaning at every move, and holding on to the table, stood up. Chrollo handed him a steel rod he had found outside, and Feitan put weight on, before limping to the entrance.

“Where are you going?” asked Chrollo.

Feitan tried a few other steps before answering, “Home.”

“But you no longer have a home.”

“New home. Will find.”

“You can stay here.”

“No,” he said without even looking at him.

“You can. Crab won’t do anything against it, if I provide for you. I’m not even sure he’ll notice,” Chrollo stretched out his hand. “Stay with me. Food always taste better when you share it. It’s no big deal to have nothing, but it’s a pain to have no one. I don’t own a lot of things, but my friendship. Would you accept it?” He offered his warmest smile.

Feitan turned and stared at him a couple of seconds, gathering his words. “You speak pretty,” he said. 

Chrollo beamed. “Great! I’m gonna find another bed and put it on the…”

“But you no clever as you think,” he cut him short. He stepped outside and walked away, without looking back.   
  


************************

Chrollo blinked at the empty entrance for a moment.       

In Meteor, alliances and friendships were more than a food for the soul. They were food for the body too, extra numerous hands to give and receive, protection against danger, someone to look after you when you appeared missing, a bite to chew on the skinny days. People who had no family, allies or friends died so early they didn’t even have the time to become crazy. Everybody knew everyone here. It wasn’t conviviality. It was survival. 

Feitan lived alone for so long he didn’t even know how to speak a language fluently. Yet he survived, and could even afford to refuse a friendship. This made no sense, that fascinated Chrollo more than the hidden or complicated senses. 

He smirked to himself as he heard Crab’s steps coming over again. He was holding a plank, a new curtain, and a handful of nails in his mouth he probably stole in deserted stacks.

He walked to Chrollo, pat his limbs to check if he was wounded in any way, and then nailed a new curtain at the entrance with a big stone. Chrollo waited till Crab freed a hand to keep the nails in so he could speak without risking an unfortunate nutritional intake in iron.

“How does it feel like to be responsible for someone?”

Crab brought the plank inside to fix a gap in the wall that had been widened by the tempest. “What the f...hell is this question?” Crab always took care to never swear in front of Chrollo, but wasn’t really good at it. When he was younger, Chrollo thought “fhell” was an actual word.

“I was responsible for someone the last few days; it was very pleasant. Everything was simple. All I had to think about was to save him. It was scary too, because he may die, but I thought he was dead a few hours before and it didn’t feel the same? I was sad when I thought he died by accident, but when I thought he might die because of me - I mean, because of my incompetence - the feel was so different, I wasn’t sad at all. I was determined. I think it’s the right word, determined. It’s a silly word to apply to people. As if people were blurry until they are determined. But maybe it’s not that silly. This is exactly this. I was blurry, and he made me clear. I think it’s what happens when you care for someone more than yourself. It probably happened, because I endangered myself for him in the tempest. I’d thought you’d feel it, when someone becomes so important to you it outreaches the importance you give to yourself. Many books I’ve read talk about this. But actually it doesn’t. You just do the right things. These books were pretty boring anyway. I think I get it now. I’m glad we had this conversation.”

“You’re welcome” said Crab fixing the plank. “But Chrollo?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t endanger yourself. For anyone.”

“Why? Isn’t what people responsible for others do?”

“Yeah but… don’t do that.”

“I take note,” he said. He noticed it was a good sentence. It could mean anything. For the moment, it meant he took note that Crab didn’t want him to endangered himself. He carefully ignored he knew he’d understand something completely different.

He put on his old shirt and rolled up his trousers, took his curtain off his bed, folded it and stuck it under his arm, then rummaged through the crate for the last biscuit crumbs.

“Where you’re going? I have food.” understood Crab.

Chrollo reached the door, felt the new drape. “Thanks. But I’m searching for a distraction now. I like to be determined, I hope I’ll have another occasion to feel this way later. But it’s tiring and now I need to recover my blurriness. Maybe it’s where true identity lies, not in a fixed state, but in alternations? ”

“If you say so, but it wasn’t my question actually.”

“I’ll go by the lake, maybe reading.”

“The lake keepers will chase you.”

Chrollo smirked mysteriously while stepping outside, “Maybe. But someone said I wasn’t as smart as I thought. I need to prove him wrong.” 


	3. fish and dog

To reach the lake, Chrollo had to pass alongside the Rejected Lands. They were relatively even grounds of dirt that had been picked out and declared unsuitable for recycling. Which meant no glass, no steel, no vicious sharp angles pointing out unnoticed. It was the safest area for the kids to play.

Punctured plastic bags had been rolled in a ball and a soccer game was on the way. Chrollo considered joining them. A bit of exercise was more appealing when you knew food was already waiting for you home. Chrollo knotted his curtain around his waist, and was running to the ball game when a half of a lock hit his back.

He rubbed his shoulder, turned and faced Clémence. She looked pretty upset. “Machi told me. You were out during the tempest. What were you doing.”

“If Machi takes you as a confident, you probably already know,” he groaned. 

“Don’t put yourself in danger when you’re someone else’s last resort.”

“OK, I take note,” he said distractedly, eyeing the ball game.

“Especially when this someone is a beast.”

A loud cheer rose when someone scored. Chrollo stared at her, now fully concentrating.

“The beast is dead.”

“As dead as you’re honest. Don’t worry, I’m not going after it.”

“May your honesty rest in peace too. Everyone knows you want to get rid of it.”

“I just want to know if you’re aware it’s following you.”

Chrollo carefully refrained from looking around him, but Clémence noticed, “You didn’t know.”

“I didn’t pay attention,” confessed Chrollo.

“You should. If I knew where to find the only person who can give away my description, I’d keep an eye on them. Waiting for my wound to heal. And then I’d kill them.”

Outraged screams rose from behind Chrollo’s back. A guy made a fault and refused to admit it. “Uvogin! You prick!” and the first noises of a fight occurred. The incriminated boy seemed to face twenty players at once and not being annoyed in the least. 

“But you haven’t considered that,” continued Clémence.

“No. Only a hunter like you can think like a beast. But there’s no more beast, right?”

Chrollo hadn’t expected his voice to harden on this last sentence, but his tone didn’t leave any room for interpretation. Clémence smirked, looked up at the sky, as if she was trying to collect her thoughts, and sighed. “All right. The beast is dead. If I see some unknown weird guy walking on all four, I know it’s yours. You’re responsible for it now.”

“Yes. I am.”

“Which means if the beast makes a mess, you’re accountable for it.”

“OK.”

“Glad we agree.”

Clémence turned her back and Chrollo ran to the playground. The named Uvogin had stolen the ball and threatened to eat it if he wasn’t allowed to play. Chrollo suddenly stopped and walked back, calling Clémence’s name.

“You’re responsible for a lot of kids. What does it feel like? Are you determined?” he asked.

Clémence blinked at the unexpected question. “Every second of my life.”

“What does it give you?”

“Strength.”

“But you’re already strong anyway.”

“Strength without purpose is just destruction.”

Chrollo rubbed his chin, meditating on the question. “But what if you have to destroy to fulfil your purpose ?”

“Kid, it’s the story of my life.”

“OK!” he smiled. “Thanks for your input.”

“Yer welcome,” muttered Clémence, walking away.

Chrollo turned to the game, where three kids were trying to get the ball out of the mouth of a bulky boy, and walked back again. “Ho! Clémence!”

“Whaaaaaaat again,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Don’t you ever feel the need to be blurry? Isn’t it a bit tiring to be determined all the time?”

Clémence stared at him, with a grave look Chrollo never witnessed from her. “It’s not tiring,” she said, turning her back, and Chrollo almost missed what she added. “It’s fucking exhausting.”

And while cheers and groans of disgust resonated behind him, when the kids took back a half chewed ball dripping with drool, Clémence walked to seven kids who were waiting for her, reaching their little hands, asking for food, water, for a hug, a kiss on their hurt, and Chrollo realized that, despite her young age, he never saw her playing.

____________________________________________________

Chrollo had earned a new hole in his old shirt and a bruise on his arm when he reached the lake. He had played with the kids, and had a lot of fun, but the guy Uvoguin was so strong and so brutal the game stopped to turn into a general scuffle which was even funnier until they realized the ball had been lost.

He flattened his disheveled bangs over his forehead, even if there was little chance anyone could see him. The lake was usually calm and empty, thanks to -or because of - the lake keepers.

The lake was the ancient main water reservoir, that became non-drinkable after a seaweed invasion. Some inhabitants took advantage of it. Meteorians took advantage of everything. Nobody knew who started to import fish. It was long ago, and now the schools of carp were so compact that in summer, when the sun hit just right, it looked like a gigantic aquatic monster. Children had a story about it, the Fallen Angel, a living part of the night stuck underwater.

By way of Fallen Angel, Chrollo had only seen lake keepers, who definitely looked like they’d eat you alive, if they caught you breaking the rules. The fish proliferated, but it wasn’t enough to feed the whole city, so the fishing seasons were strictly regulated. On the other hand, feeding the fish was encouraged any time, so when Chrollo stepped into the lake, water up to his knees, and spreaded around the crumbs, the guardian stared at him a couple of seconds until Chrollo faked to just notice her. “Good day, ma’am!” he said with his most innocent smile. “What lovely weather we have after this storm!” The guardian rose her cap and went on her patrol again, turning her back to the kid. 

It was a lucky day. The one-eyed woman lake keeper was the kindest one. She recognized him, the strange kid who spent so much time by the water, flat on his stomach on the pontoon, observing the carps with a fascinated gaze. Sometimes he tried to pet them, just like it was puppies. One day she asked him what he was doing all day long, his hand on the water, and Chrollo confessed he found the carp so pretty, so gracious, he felt so calm and  _ fulfilled _ when he looked at them, and she had been surprised a kid used this word about carps that didn’t imply he’d eat them. 

Chrollo walked to the pontoon wood and sat, his toes teasing the water, letting the tiny sunshine dry out his legs, and kept on throwing crumbs. When he finished, he rolled upon his stomach to see the fish rushing, their mouths wide open. Chrollo heard a muffled wet sound, too loud to be cased by a fish, under the pontoon, and refrained a smile.

Chrollo rolled upon his back and gazed to the clear sky. It wouldn’t have a storm before days. Good. Crab would have the time to repair their home.

Their home!

Fish swim away when Chrollo jumped on his feet, making the pontoon trembling on its base. He screamed a frustrated cry. “Aaarg... what’s wrong with me?” He felt so stupid. How the fhell did Clémence know he had sheltered the beast? Machi couldn’t have told her that. It was even likely Machi didn’t tell her anything. She was the single child of two parents, she probably never had talked to her once in her life. Clémence had lied. The rejected hills were far from her fields, and adjoined different districts she had nothing to do in. But she knew where she could find him, at the first try. Just one explanation to that: she was following him since he left his house. Meaning she had seen Feitan coming out first, and she knew he was keeping an eye on him because  _ she _ was keeping an eye on Feitan. Clémence wasn’t afraid of storms. Chrollo was pretty sure storms were afraid of her. She knew he went outside to Machi’s during the storm because she saw him. She was spying him. 

Chrollo laid on the curtain, rolled over on his stomach, reached his arm to the aquatic weeds pointing out of the water, and slowly pinched the head of a little green straw.

He had to wait a solid minute before Feitan popped out the water, breathing a gasp of air. Chrollo beamed at his murderous glance. “Hi!” he said cheerily. “Fishing going well?”

“It was,” he groaned. “Before you came.”

“Don’t make fun of me. When the weather is chilly like this, fish are lazy. With the storm the other day, the underwater is still as dark as a liquid night. You just had to wait and stretch your hand, didn’t you? And I lured them just right.”

Feitan’s eyebrow rose so slowly and so high Chrollo thought it’d never stop and would slide around his whole head. “Liquid night,” he repeated, as someone who couldn’t believe what he just heard.

“It’s a metaphor,” explained Chrollo.

“Liquid. Night.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything.”

“What a drama queen.”

Feitan blew a little water through his nose. “How did you see me?”

“I didn’t,” shrugged Chrollo. “It was logical. Wounded, limping, weakened, and Clémence after you? You can’t hunt, but you have to eat, and hide. The lake is the perfect place for both. If you hadn’t thought about it yet, I showed you, because I knew you were following me anyway. You see how I distracted the lake keeper?” he asked excitedly. “Did you see it? She suspects nothing. You saw it?”

“I was underwater,” reminded Feitan.

“Ho, right. You caught a fish?”

“No.”

“How big?”

“Like my leg.”

“It’s not that big.”

“Fuck you.”

Feitan lifted up on the pontoon a net in where a big carp was writhing. Chrollo pressed on the tail so the hits on the wood wouldn’t alarm the lake keeper.

“Nice catch. You share?”

“No.”

“Selfish.”

“No sell either,” and he frowned when Chrollo bursted out of laughters.

“Why are you following me if you don’t want to be my friend?” he asked when he recovered his calm.

Feitan frowned again, “Friends follow each other?”

“...Fair point. Would be creepy. But why?”

“My business.”

Chrollo rolled over upon his back, fingers crossed under his neck. The sky was slowly swinging to a colorful twilight, and the moon appeared. He heard the wet sound of Feitan coming out of the water, and sitting next to him on the curtain.

“You need to dry off. You’re gonna catch a cold,” said Chrollo wrapping the curtain around Feitan’s shoulder.

“Thanks mom,” groaned Feitan, pushing off the curtain.

“You need to come live with me.”

Feitan rolled his eyes. “This thing again.”

“No, listen,” said chrollo sitting up and looking at him. “You saw Clémence talking to me. You keep an eye on me.”

“So?” asked Feitan and Chrollo started to explain.

Clémence knew where the Beast was all along. Wounded, ill, easy to kill, and for the moment Chrollo was out, alone.

But he was at his place. Hospitality was sacred in Meteor, and Clémence was a girl of honor. She wouldn’t violate this tacit rule. What added to her reputation, and the general respect she aroused, was that no one could have ever come upon her using cheap tactics.

She’d fight according to the rules. She was ready to wait for his wound to heal, if it meant fighting in honor. It was his chance. He’d be perfectly safe as long as he was at Chrollo’s place.

“You came to me when you were feeling in danger. You’re feeling better, but the situation didn’t change. So I’m not offering you a friendship you don’t want. I’m just warning you came outside too early,” ended Chrollo.

“Twisted words,” muttered Feitan while sliding back into the water and slowly swimming under the pontoon’s shadows.

“Why’re you hiding?” asked Chrollo, who pressed his eye against a gap between two planks to follow Feitan’s moves. “You’re shy? You’re emotional. You can’t hide underwater all your life long.”

“Who are you talking to?” said a feminine voice behind him.

Chrollo swallowed and slowly turned over, carefully posing as someone who has nothing to be reproached to. “Hello again, miss guardian! I’m talking to the fish. I don’t know why, they seem to hide today. I love their scales, they’re so lovely with their little black border, don’t you think?”

“Well, you already have one close enough to gaze at,” said the guardian pointing the writhing carp on the pontoon. 

“Yes, I think it’s why the others are scared away,” replied Chrollo without any hesitation. “They may have thought there’s a fisher out there.”

“I can’t blame them,” said the guardian. “It’s what I think too.”

Chrollo was observing the guardian. She had a clean cap, salvaged from a foreign fireman apparently, with shiny copper that didn’t seem to belong to the cap in the first place. She was a rookie, and chose this work to enjoy a certain form of authority. She would chat for a moment, especially because she was feeling cheated on, after he got her trust. She’d take her sweet time to savour Chrollo’s fear, or what she thought was fear. These kind of people were prone to think themselves impressive.

“Caught on the spot,” she said walking to him slowly. “I knew you were up to no good. You thought you earned this guardian’s trust, right? You think you’re the first one trying this old trick? You let your guard down, thinking I won’t suspect you.”

Ho. So this kind of strategy can work both ways. He just fooled himself. Well, nevermind. 

Behind the guardian, Chrollo could saw a silent and wet hand taking the steel rod off the pontoon. It made the tiniest strum on the wood, but the guardian turned over. She couldn’t have seen anything, it was on the blind spot caused by her dead eye, but she had a good hearing.

Chrollo felt on his knees, his hands clasped in prayer, and said very loud : “Please mistress, don’t take me, don’t reduce me in powder, don’t give me to eat to the fish! I’m a good boy! I’ll never do it again! I swear! Don’t give me to the Fallen Angel! I don’t want to die! Please i’m afraid of…!”

“Shut up!” said the guardian, sounding the greyish twilight.

“... monsters one pursued me once and it was so terrifying and…”

“I said : shut up!” she groaned, and losing patience, she seized him by the collar, forced him to stand, pushed him to the edge of the pontoon. He lost his balance and fell into the water.

The guardian looked around. She was sure someone else was behind her. The night was settling, and the tiny crescent moon couldn’t do anything for her. Maybe more than one fish were caught. 

She just hoped the kid wouldn’t make a mess like coming out the lake. She had to rely on her ears solely. But he reminded calm. Actually, she couldn’t hear him at all.

She came to the pontoon end, looking searchingly the dark waters. The surface was still waving in concentric circles at the place the boy fell. But no boy in sight. Now that she thought about it, she always saw him walking by the lake, but never swim. Maybe he didn’t know. She squatted and reached her arm down underwater, feeling seaweeds, grabbing them, wondering if it was the boy’s hair.

If he drown, she had to hide the body. Pretty easy, when you were responsible for an entire lake, and nourishing for the fish what was more. But she wanted him to denounce his accomplices. fish lives worthed more than poachers’.

She laid flat on her stomach and plunged her arm deeper, the water up to the shoulder. She felt something hard, and grabbed it. And it grabbed her back. She felt silent hands lifting her ankles. She was pulled to the water, with no way to resist. She slided in the lake with a scream of frustration.

Chrollo get back on his feet on the pontoon, out of breath, helped by Feitan. The guardian was already blowing angrily in her whistle. Four lanterns light up on four different points around the lake, call screams resonated, imperious whistles, and the bark of a dog.

“Oops,” commented Feitan pretty accurately. 

He took the curtain while Chrollo tucked the fish under his arm. Priorities.

“Drop fish! Dog smell it!” objected Feitan.

“Gotta catch us first!” said Chrollo before running full speed. He aimed the most uneven site. He knew all the shortcuts. He would leave the adults behind easily. All Feitan had to do was to follow him.

But he wasn’t. Chrollo’s heart missed a beat. Of course. Feitan can’t run.

Chrollo ran back, guided by angry barks and dog whinings. A man yelled in the distance. “Good dog, good! Bring to dad!” A groan Chrollo knew well echoed. Feitan was in danger.

By the moonlight Chrollo saw Feitan, the curtain wrapped around his arm as a protection, fighting with his steel rod against an invisible enemy.

He was punching hard and fast, focused on a target that Chrollo couldn’t see. It was just like he blocked and attacked solid pieces of thin air, that materialized and vanished as Feitan repelled them.

The invisible enemy was barking.

A beast. A beast that can’t be seen…

The Ravenous Beast. It was real. And it was attacking Feitan.

The other guardians were coming over slowly, one still soaking wet. Chrollo crouched down behind the bulrushes. They were taking their time. They looked at the battle, hands in the pocket, commenting Feitan and the invisible enemy’s moves.

A tall man whistled and said louder : “Good, good doggo, come down with it, good boy,” and Chrollo heard a rageful bark, Feitan was pushed down to the ground, he lost his steel rod, he fighted bare hands against a force right upon him, and Chrollo picked up a heavy stone, Feitan’s face turned right and left as to escape pairs of fangs, massive jaws clapped, Chrollo crawled around the adults, Feitan yelled, Chrollo jumped in the tall man, blacked him out with the stone, and Feitan arms waved in the free air, and he sat, looking around, out of breath. The danger had disappeared.

The three other adults looked at their teammate on the ground, needing a second to gather their thoughts. It was more than enough for Chrollo. He tossed the carp to Feitan, squatted, and Feitan jumped on his back. “Bye losers!” he yelled cheerily, waving the carp, as Chrollo ran like hell. 

He relied on his ears to perceive any growl, any bark, any clue that the dog was on their traces again. He knew he couldn’t run long. Feitan was light, but Chrollo was younger and had played all day without eating. They had to hide.

Feitan taped in his shoulder, pointing left. Chrollo turned, having no idea what he had in mind. Feitan jumped off his shoulders and rushed into a little cavity in a dirt hill. He waved to Chrollo to get in.

There was barely enough room for two. Feitan flapped the curtain and plugged the entrance, keeping them out of sight of their attackers.

"Fei, not here! " whispered Chrollo. "We need to get into a more stinky area. We need to clog up the dog’s sense of smell, or to drop the fish."

Feitan shooked his head. "If master can't see, dog can't smell."

"What are you talking about, you were the one who warned me about it first, it makes no sense at..." Feitan pressed his hand against his mouth.

Running steps were approaching. Chrollo counted four, meaning the dog owner was awake again. No surprise : Chrollo wasn't strong enough to hope knocking out an adult for long. 

Chrollo had made his move without thinking twice. He had realized the surreal invisible beast was reacting to his owner voice only, so he acted on the first idea that crossed his mind. He didn't wonder why, or how. It wasn't the time for it. He realized now that it escaped everything he always knew about animals behavior. He couldn’t rely on his knowledge.

The steps were getting closer. Chrollo heard a dog's growl. In the dark he couldn't see Feitan, who was yet so close in this narrow space that he could touch him. But he could feel his calm, his controlled breathing, and his concentration. Since Chrollo had no control on the situation, he relied entirely on Feitan, and based his behavior on his.

He could now hear shreds of conversations, whispered words, and the specific rapid pace of an excited dog.

They were near. They were here. The dog was right behind the curtain. Chrollo could hear the dog's sniffings, the muzzle pressing on the fabric.

Chrollo's heart started to race. If they were caught in this place, no escape. They’d be done. But Feitan shown no nervosity at all. Chrollo tried to remain calm.

He was right. The lake keepers didn't even slowed down. They passed by their hideout without looking twice. Chrollo heard their steps fading away.

Feitan was still unmoving, so Chrollo did the same. When he spoke after a solid minute of silence, Chrollo startled. 

"Let's go."

Chrollo folded the curtain, slipped out a careful head to look around, but Feitan didn't even bother. He stood from their hideout and walked without checking. "What you do?" he said, looking at Chrollo, still crouched down in alert. "They're gone."

“But what if... ?"

"What?"

"The dog."

"Don't worry. Dog no smarter than owner. And owner stupid."

Feitan started to walk tranquilly, a hand in his pocket and the carp thrown on his shoulder. He started to whistle.

Chrollo quickly stood up, and ran to his side : "This dog... We have to warn Clémence… The real one… We know where it is..."

"What you talkin’ bout ?"

"The real one! The one is the stories! The Ravening Beast!"

____________________________________________________

“What do you mean “the real beast.” asked Clémence to the tall woman in front of her.

She had walked all day long, to the southern districts, where the Ravening Beast had first started its attacks. They were still to this day the most damaged areas. 

“The first one, I should specify,” said the woman with an authoritarian voice. Clémence guessed she was her counterpart on this remote district. “The Beast you’re victim of may be one of his cub. Weak and frightened. It’s nothing compared to what we’ve lived. I sympathize with you, but what you told me would have never worth a story. You’re living an annoying inconvenience. We lived in terror. You suffer from thievery. We lived a carnage. Twentyish of young children, a dozen of teens, all the henhouses, and nobody could know how many abandoned babies it has found before us. Mysterious disappearances, too, concerning adults, Yes, even adults. This thing was huge, quick, strong, and silent until you heard its scream. Starving. It needed to chase down the bigger animals to survive. And the bigger animals were us.” 

Clémence nodded. “I see. It’s not the same beast. Obviously. How yours looks like.”

“Well you can check by yourself. We’ve kept the bones.”

Clémence’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “... the bones.”

____________________________________________________

“... It’s dead?” asked Chrollo, incredulous. “The real Ravening Beast is dead? How can you be sure?”

“I killed it. It was hard. Bite me. But worth it,” answered Feitan, in conversational tone.

“And you succeeded to hear it chasing you? it’s said it was as silent as death.”

“It no chase me. I chase it. Was hungry.”

Chrollo’s jaw fell off. “ _ You ate it? _ ”

Feitan grinned. “Yummy. And big. Lasted three day.”

“How does it taste like?”

“Better than rat, no good as chicken.”

“Nothing is as good as chicken. How did he looked like?”

Feitan looked around, spotted a relatively comfortable place, stole Chrollo’s carnet and pen, and by the amadou lighter he also stole to Chrollo without he noticed it, quickly sketched an animal with a long muzzle, and a round paw print.

“ _ Canis latrans giganteus _ . The giant coyote of Padokia,” recognized Chrollo. “Its fur can change color and texture according to the environment.”

“I took the fur. But lost it when my cave banged down.”

“And you took its place,” understood Chrollo. “You kept on screaming like it did, you chased like it did, no one could see you and everyone was terrified of you, and never tried to approach your territory.”

“They run away when I scream. Peace.”

“The Beast is dead but its story remains. It’s clever. You know, I’m happy you never have eaten babies after all.”

“Nah, too small.”

“Idiot,” smiled Chrollo. “But what was the invisible dog you fought against?”

Feitan shrugged: “Just nen."

"Just what?"

"Nen dog. No beast." Feitan stood up and threw the carp over his shoulder, and kept on walking, as if the conversation was over. Chrollo quickly ran to him.

"But I couldn't see it! Just hear it! Just like it’s told in the story!!"

Feitan stopped dead. He turned to him : "You hear?"

"Yes! It was terrifying! You were fighting against something invisible and all I could do was listening because..."

"Shut up."

Feitan grabbed Chrollo's cheeks and forced him to look into his eyes. His look became strange, piercing, oddly bright.

"What are you doing?" he succeed to enunciate through Feitan's grip.

Feitan let him go, and kept on walking. "Nah. Not ready. But you have..." he waved with irritation. "What is this word. You have the thing to learn."

"A predisposition?"

"Yeah presidosp... as you said. Why you no ran away with the fish?”

Chrollo blinked : “Why would have I done that?”

“I would,” shrugged Feitan.

“So what?”

Feitan stopped, turned slowly, and stared at him for a solid minute. Then he started to snicker. 

"What is funny?" asked Chrollo.

Feitan kept on limping again. " You. You funny. You not like others. And you stronger than I thinked, puny."

"Puny? Have you seen yourself?"

"Puny, puny, puny!" sing sang Feitan.

“You’ll see who’s the puny!” yelled Chrollo starting a punch.

It was for fun, for a play, a way to release the stress he just felt. He didn’t plan to hit him hard, but he didn’t expect not touching him at all. Feitan dodged easily every attempt, hands in his pockets, and a mocking smile on his lips, without even touching the carp on his shoulder that stayed in place. After Chrollo got enough, and too out of breathe to go on anyway, Feitan laughed and nodded at him.

“You hungry now I bet.”

“I’m always hungry.”

Feitan tapped the carp on his shoulder. “Me too. Come along. There’s enough for two.”


	4. the fallen angel

A clear fire crackled at the top of the hill, its smoke fraying into the sky. Blazing sparks tickled stars. A good smell of burning wood and roasted fish infused the air. 

Sat cross-legged on the curtain, agreeably warmed, Feitan chewed his fish with appetite while Chrollo, a fishbone in his hand like a baton, was telling : 

“... then the Great Carpenter attaches to each other the bones of his lost companions, building up highs so tall, he could reach the fabric of the night. Then he takes gold nails, big ones, small ones, shining or twinkling, and hammers them into the texture of the universe, and he named them ‘stars”. Since the night is forever attached to the sky, and will never fall again on the Wanderers’ sleep.”

Chrollo paused to observe Feitan. He had stopped to chew and was gaping at the night. Chrollo smiled : “Did you know this one?”

“No.”

“It’s a famous Wanderer story. The Great Carpenter is their protective spirit. He keeps their shelters safe, and watch after them at night.”

“But what if stars rust.”

“Gold doesn’t rust.”

“You can’t nail night. It’s just air,” said Feitan, quite concerned. He waved his hand above him. And then stood on his toes, and stretched higher just to be sure. “I hate stories,” he said sitting down again. “Tell me another one.”

Chrollo giggled : “There’s something next, the Fallen Angel. You know this one?”

“No,” lied Feitan.

“The night find their stars so pretty, they can’t stop admiring them, looking for their reflexion in puddles, in calm seas, in polished glaciers. A stormy day they’re gazing at their reflexion into our lake. The wind dives into the night fabric, and tears it apart, and a bite of night falls into the water. They become an angel, for angels are entities who knows absolute, but can’t reach it. The Fallen Angel knew the night; they were a part of it; but they were stuck underwater, crying eternally, so that’s why the lake is the only body of water that never dries out even on heatwave.”

Feitan gasped and muttered :”That’s true!”

“The Angel, too immaterial to be carried by birds, to fragile to hold on to the rising sun, too dense to evaporate with the dew, has no way to come back home using this material world. They need something as ethereal, as pure as them. Something like them, out of this world, but walking on the same land, drinking the same water. They need the soul of an innocent child, to ride their last breath, and rise to the night with their new companion. Since, the Fallen Angel waits, patiently, for a child to die with.”

Chrollo eyed the effect of the story on Feitan. He looked like he was about to say something, changed his mind, frowned, and slowly turned his face to him, his eyes narrowed, glancing suspiciously : “If there a rip in the night. Where is it,” he asked slowly with the voice of someone who found the weak point of the universe and was ready to punch it.

“Here,” answered Chrollo pointing to the moon crescent.

“Holy shit.”

Feitan twitched his neck to the lake direction, which at this distance was just a plane surface among the dirt hills. “But I no see them when I had the fish.”

“Maybe it’s already gone. It’s an old story.”

“Or they no wanted me. My soul is no pure.”

 

“I don’t think an impure soul exist. Neither a pure one. We’re all just humans. Sins belong to earth and die with the body.”

 

“Dogs. Dogs have pure souls.”

 

“Fair point. Dogs. And carp too.”

 

“Not seagulls.”

 

“Seagulls are evil. Beautiful but evil.”

 

“Rats?”

 

“Demons.”

 

“Glad we agree” concluded Feitan biting another piece of fish.

 

Chrollo thought he’d never stopped eating. Four people could have feasted on this carp, Chrollo already had his part, but Feitan looked like he was ready to be the three others persons alone.

 

“We kill a kid by the lake?” he asked mouthful.

 

Chrollo thought a little and shook his head: “I’m not sure we should do that.”

 

“Yeah. No pure soul. Poor angel. All alone. Like you.”

 

“They have the fish, the frogs. The lake keepers. They’re not alone,” said Chrollo cleaning his teeth with the fish bone. “Neither I am, by the way. I’m with you.”

 

Feitan shooked his head, irritated that he couldn’t express himself more clearly. “It’s… the same.”

 

“Sorry I don’t get it.”

 

“You have friends?”

 

“I get along with everyone.”

 

“That mean no.”

 

Chrollo blinked, stared at the night a few seconds. A log cracked and rolled in the fire. “You’re right. That means no.”

 

“I see when none see me.”

 

“You hide and observe people,” understood Chrollo.

 

“I saw you. Often. On hides.”

 

“Yes, I’m often at places that are deserted by other kids. You too. We should have been next to each others many times.”

 

Feitan nodded to confirm. “You like Fallen Angel with the fish. Fish swim, eat, shit. Not you. You wait. You wait for bigger thing.”

 

Chrollo frowned : “For what?”

 

Feitan shrugged :”Don’t know, not in your head, dimpshit.”

 

Chrollo chuckled and laid across the curtain, finger crossed under his neck. Stars sure were pretty. His legs were pleasantly warmed by the fire. Feitan had been oddly talented to light it. He had used combustibles Chrollo would never thought could set ablaze. Chrollo had been so mesmerized he didn’t say anything when he realized feitan wouldn’t bring him back his lighter.

 

“Do you sometimes think about the other kids?” Chrollo asked.

 

“What other kids?”

 

“The kids who aren’t in Meteor. Who are staring at the same stars, and don’t know they are nails that hold the night up.”

 

Feitan took the last piece of fish, proposed it to Chrollo who shooked his head, and bite it violently. He chewed a solid minute before answering : “Yes. All the time.” Chrollo understood he took upon him to make this confession.

 

“You want to leave Meteor too?”

 

Feitan licked his fingers and observed him. “Why? You want to leave?” he asked expectantly.

 

Chrollo thought a little. “I don’t know. I guess. I read a lot of books and… things can be very different out there. Do you know museums?”

 

“Nope. What that?”

 

“There’s something people outside Meteor have. Entire buildings, sometimes very large, several floors, large rooms and all, and they put beautiful things in there, paintings, statues, objects, or videos, and people go inside just to watch them. Imagine… they don’t do anything but watch at beautiful things. It’s… an activity.”

 

Feitan’s eyes were as rounds as balls. “That crazy. I no believe you.”

 

“I know! That makes no sense!” said Chrollo excitedly rolling upon his side. “I’m not even sure it’s real either. Maybe it’s a common story in the outside world, I don’t know. A thing they dream about, like we dream about angels in the lake. Who can have such a luxurious life they take time just for beauty alone? That’s insane. I’m obsessed with this idea since the first time I read it. Just standing… gazing at beautiful things. I don’t think it’s possible. But I really hope to. I want to go outside and see if it’s real. And if it’s real... I wanna do it too.” 

 

Feitan hit his chest and belched noisily. “If I go outside, I want… all the food. All the food of the world. All the tastes. For me.”

 

Chrollo rose an eyebrow. “Hum. Now that you mention it, I like this idea a lot too.”

 

“We do the twos.”

 

“Both. Going in museums eating all the food. Perfect. Perfect life.”

 

They high fived and Feitan settled more comfortably on the curtain, grinning when he stretched his leg.

 

“How is your wound?” asked Chrollo who had noticed.

 

Feitan rode up his trousers’ legs : “Gonna have big scar,” he said with a pinch of pride.

 

Chrollo looked at it : “True beauty. Let’s put it in a museum.”

 

“This better,” said the boy showing off the other leg. His entire calf’s skin was pinkish, swollen, with an unusual brilliance.

 

“Wow! How did you get this?”

 

“Fire.”

 

“How it happened?”

“Not your business,” said Feitan, scowling immediately. 

“I have a scar too,” said Chrollo, rising up his bang. He revealed, in the middle of his forehead, fours dots placed in diamond, and a fifth one in the middle, stretched by the growth.

“Weird. It’s cemeteryc,” said Feitan. 

“Symmetric,” corrected Chrollo. “I don’t remember how I got it, I was too young. I hate them,” he said, leaving his bang down and flattening it. “It’s ugly, I’m disfigured.”

Feitan burst out of laughters. “Wuss!”

“I’m not a wuss. You’d hate your scars too if they were on your face,” mumbled Chrollo, slightly upset.

“You wuss. Not ugly. It’s like…” He weaved a vague gesture to the sky, “... like when stars write story.”

“Stories written by the stars?”

“You know,” insisted Feitan, clicking his tongue. “The stars make form, and forms make stories.”

“Constellations?” guessed Chrollo.

“Conste-llation”, repeated Feitan. “Yes. You always by the lake. Fish are your friends. You’re the fallen angel, and it’s your stars. Look.” He pointed the South Cross, and closing an eye, like he was aiming a target, he circled it with his thumb and index. Then, with a slow turn and infinite care, as if he was carrying a bird, he put the circle on Chrollo’s forehead, enclosing the marks. “You see. It fits,” he shrugged as if he had resolved a very complicated problem.

Chrollo touched his forehead, feeling the irregularities under his finger tips, whispering : “It fits. You’re right. I’ll no longer be self-conscious now. Thanks.”

“Welcome. Ask me when you want know things, wuss.”

“Stop calling me a wuss!”

“OK wimp.”

“You have twenty vocabulary words and ten of them are swears, how is it possible,” laughed Chrollo.

Feitan yawned deeply, patting his stomach. He curled himself in a ball on the curtain, pushing Chrollo aside who pushed back. They fought a little, calling each other names, and finally tuck themselves comfortably, warmed by the dying fire and their own bodies, and fell asleep, dreaming about angels and edible stars.

____________________________________________________

 

The morning after, Chrollo woke up first. He yawned and stretched, and was about to stand up when Feitan grabbed his ankle.

“Where you goin’?” he says with a croaking voice, his eyes still closed.

“Looking for water and food.”

“Too early. Lemme sleep,” he yawned, pulling Chrollo’s ankle so he’d be forced to lay again.

“I want to pee.”

Feitan let his ankle’s go with a “yikes”. Chrollo stood up and quickly ran to the nearest reservoir. It was just a rusted bidon ideally oriented to collect the rain, and at this time of the year, it was always full.

Chrollo met two other kids he didn’t know, who were already helping themselves. They looked at him with defiance. It was the first time it happened. Chrollo had been carried away by Feitan further than his usual paths. He realized he thought everyone knew him, but actually he was known only around his own district. Even the kids looked different here, even more indigent than the kids he considered indigent. He wondered how many young Wanderers lived totally on their own, without even a Clémence to take care of them.

He let them drink before approaching the bidon, and looked at his waving reflection in the water. He smiled, took an handful of water, and slicked his hair back. He’d show everyone his stars now.

Chrollo came back to the curtain, where the fire was still smoking, and Feitan was snoring lightly. Chrollo lifted the plastic recipient full of water right above Feitan’s head, ready to let a couple of drops flow on his face. He didn’t even have the time to tilt the recipient that Feitan grabbed his wrist. “D’n’t do tha’…” he mumbled. 

“I’m no match against you,” admitted Chrollo giving the water to Feitan who drank it blindly, his eyelids still weighted down by the sleep.

‘Indeed,” he bubbled in his glass. “So. When we go?”

“Where?”

“Outside. Eating museums.”

Chrollo thought hard. “Not now. We have to organize. We won’t survive outside, or we’d be put in jail. And we’ll need a vehicle, and learn to drive.”

“I know to drive,” said Feitan as if Chrollo had just insulted him.

Chrollo blinked. “Really?”

“Of course. How you think I get here.”

“Well this point is resolved, but we still don’t have any vehicle, and we can’t walk our way out with your leg.”

“Right,” reluctantly admitted Feitan, and he gave the water back to Chrollo. “So. When we go?”

“You’re stubborn.”

“I talking of your house, you idiot.”

Chrollo beamed, so happy he shaked his water and wetted his shirt. “So you agree? You come with me?”

“Yeah. Just crossed my mind, like that,” said Feitan who had thought about it all night long.

“Great! I will take care of you. And Crab, too.”

“No. He won’t know. Adults no care of children,” he said, rubbing his burned leg. “And you right. It’s still too early. I have to grow up. And grow my hair. And hide my face. Or they’ll find me again, if I go outside.”

“Who?”

“Not your business,” he said with the same scowling tone as the day before. “Anyway. Go ahead. My leg hurt after the dog fight. Won’t walk for nothing. Check your crab not here. Or the beanie girl.”

“Ok then,” said Chrollo who started to run.

“Hey, wait!”

Chrollo ran backward, watching Feitan driving a stick into the ground. He marked the place the shadow was, then drew another mark a bit to the left, and slightly closer to the stick.

“It’s a hour, or so. When the shadow will hit the mark, I be gone. Come back before. Come back alone. Or no come back at all.”

“You’re harsh.”

“I have my reasons.”

“You’re suspicious.”

“Same reasons.”

“So this is why you followed me yesterday. You wanted to know if you could trust me. You heard what i said to Clémence, aren’t you?”

“Tic, tac. Tic, tac.”

“A shadow doesn’t tic tac.”

“This one does.”

Feitan laid back on the curtain, fingers crossed on his neck, and closed his eyes. Chrollo knew he wouldn’t answer more clearly. He also was sure he wasn’t about to sleep before his return.

____________________________________________________

An hour was actually pretty generous of Feitan, but Chrollo was running like hell. He passed the lake bending over on his tip toes. He asked the children on the Rejected Lands, but none of them had seen Crab. That was annoying. Crab was probably no longer home by now.

He was so focused on looking for Crab he didn’t see Clémence approaching him. He didn’t have the time to dodge her attack. 

She grabbed his arm firmly, forced him to turn around, and rose her blade above his head. He lifted his other arm in defense and kicked her knee. She staggered, but kept her balance. Her blades swooped down on him. Chrollo crouched down, tried to get rid of the grip but he was helpless. The blades clicked at his ears. 

“What are you doing,” said Clémence. “Hide this.”

And Chrollo realized the blades dancing over his head weren’t harming him. They were disheveling him. “Mind your own business,” he said standing up, trying to clear his forehead with his free hand. “My friend told me it was a constellation.”

“Ho, so cute,” she lilted sarcastically. “If you don’t pay attention, your constellation will kill you. Or worst.”

“Yeah, sure. I take note. Now if you don’t mind…”

“I do mind.”

Clémence looked around, shooed again two kids that were observing them. And then, she let his arm go, she rose up her beanie, cleared her forehead of her hair locks, that revealed, lighter on her dark skin, three dots on a line.

Chrollo blinked, looking at it carefully. “It looks like mine. But the shape is not exactly the same.”

“Do you remember how you got it.”

“No, I was too little.”

“I do,” she said, putting her beanie on again, tousling her hair on her face. “I may be four. A woman came. Pretended she’s a doctor. Examined me, made do some moves, catching balls, drawings, counting, singing. Testing me. My memory, my strength. She said she loved my curls, my freckles. Said I was pretty. And then told me I was good. Good for what, I didn’t know. She made this marks, with a kind of big ring at her finger. And then she gave me to a family.”

“A family? You have a family?”

“I had,” she said with a voice tone Chrollo never heard about her. “They raised me. Loved me. Sent me to school.”

“You went to school?” said Chrollo in disbelief. “ _ The _ school? You’re from…”

“...the inner city, yeah.”

Chrollo blinked. “But… why are you here then?”

Clémence had a sad smile, and rose her cut arm :”You wonder?”

Chrollo shook his head. “They can’t have abandoned you because you have a missing arm. It makes no sense. Almost everyone has something missing here.”

“Yeah. That’s the point. Did you ever wonder why your parents abandoned you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe one or two times. I don’t really think about it.”

“You’re one of a kind. Able-bodied kids wonder all the time. Disabled kids don’t. They know why they’re here. The world outside Meteor is not kind to people like us.”

“But you wasn’t when you were little.”

“Neither are you. Neither any child I’ve seen marked. They have all their limbs and senses. And different marks. I thought there were at least twenty different ones. But I found out there was just four, with different combinations. I started to notice patterns. One dot for beauty. Two dots for a specific talent. Triangle for strength. Diamond for intelligence.”

“What is yours, then?”

“Beauty and talent. Some child have mixed marks, like us, some have just one. These people, these fake doctors. I don’t know who they are. But they examine us. They select us. And they mark us.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. Something went wrong with me. My parents dropped me. And they weren’t happy about it. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“And the other kids? The other who are marked? Do they know?”

“This is where it starts to get weird.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve spotted twenty four kids in six years. They are hard to find. There is not that many of us, and we’re scattered all around Meteor. Some of us hide their marks. But I found some. And then lost them.”

“Lost?”

“They disappear. Vanish. Nobody knows where they are. And nobody looks for them, not even their parents.”

“They have parents?”

“All of them.”

“I don’t.”

“You have Crab.”

“It’s not a parent. I’m still nameless.”

“Never said he’s a good parent. Who else knows you have these marks.”

“Feitan.”

“Who’s that.”

“The person you made me responsible for.”

Clémence blinked. “Ho. I see. Where is he.”

“I won’t tell you.”

“Chrollo, it’s important.”

“I know. The reason he sent me here is important. Thanks for the informations. I gotta go.”

He started a run but Clémence grabbed his arm again. This girl was too damn quick.

“Kids disappear Chrollo. Be careful. Hide these marks. It’s an advice. I’m not your enemy.”

“You’re Feitan’s one. It’s all the same.”

He pulled sharply on Clémence hand and she let him go. He ran to his district, his eyebrows frown in concern. He didn’t like this. She was obviously still after Feitan, and he was all alone for the moment. He really needed to check if the path was free to his house and keep Feitan safe, quickly. 

He felt a twitch in his stomach when he saw a thin smoke trickle twirling out his house’s roof. It meant Crab was here. He’d have to make up a lie to keep him away. He’d lose time.

He rushed through the curtain that marked the entrance. Crab was in front of the smoky wood bruner. The glance he threw him almost pinned him up the wall.

Never Chrollo had seen Crab so furious. Never he had seen furious at all. Upset sometimes, sad often - but he never shown any shade of anger. Nothing seemed to matter to him enough to be angry at.

 

But when he seized them by the arm, his eyes and voice tone couldn’t let any room for doubt. He was enraged. 

 

“Where is my money?”

 

Chrollo was too stupefied to be frightened. 

 

“What money?” he asked on the defensive. He tried to get rid of the solid grab, but even if there were only two fingers left on his hand, his grip was iron clad.

 

“Whaaat moneeey?” he mocked. “You damn sure know. The money in the crate. 50 000 000 jennies are missing. 50 000 000 fucking jennies. It’s supposed to be the double in there. Where is it?”

 

“Ho this?” answered Chrollo, relieved on the moment. “I thought you were talking about real money. I just exchanged it against health cares and food during the tempest. I’m glad you’re talking about it, because there’s something I’d like to talk to y...”

 

The slap slammed him to the ground. Chrollo touched his cheek with perplexity. Crab had never hit him before, not even when he was a little boy and did stupid things. He never thought he would, especially for such a negligible reason.

 

“You…. spent it? My wealth? My life? You just gave it away?”

 

He rose his fist as if was about to hit him again, but instead sighed and collapsed on a chair. His shoulders looked weighted by an invisible burden. His eyes got darker than usual.

 

Chrollo slowly stood up, and carefully came next to him. He gently put an hand on his shoulder : “I see it’s very important to you, but there’s something else I’d like to…”

 

“Fuck off!” he shouted, slapping away the hand.

 

He sank his head into his palms. Chrollo could hardly hear what he was muttering.

 

“Seven years… Seven years for nothing… Seven years wasting my time here, with this brat, when I should be with my wife and my daughter...”

 

He glanced at him between his two fingers and Chrollo saw, stupefied, that he was crying. 

 

“Do you know how long it is, seven years, away from the ones you love? No, of course not. You never loved anyone. Not even me. I wish I could have loved you. It would have made my sweet girl’s absence more bearable. But you never gave me the occasion. Look at you.” Chrollo looked down at his clothings and Crab snorted. “Not this. You’re so stupid.”

 

“I will pay back, if it’s so important to you.”

 

“No, you won’t. You won’t have the time. When is your birthday?”

 

The unrelated question startled Chrollo. “When… tomorrow. I think?” He had lost track of time lately. He was too preoccupied by Feitan.

 

“Two days… I’ll have the final payment in two days… I’d have it all… I could’ve paid my debt back to the boss… A ten years old debt… But the boss is not the guy to forget. Neither do I. I couldn’t anyway. He made sure I couldn’t,” he sobbed, watching his missing fingers. “One finger by hundred million. I thought I had the time… I thought i could run away…. But you can’t run away from the mob. It’s everywhere.”

 

He sniffed, wiped his nose in his sleeve, stood up and walked to the entrance, leaning against the casing. He never looked so tired.

 

“Why don’t you join your wife and daughter, if you miss them so much.” Chrollo was surprised at his sharpen tone of voice.

 

Crab slowly turned his face to him. The despite in his wet eyes made was worst than an insult.

 

“Genius. You’re a genius,” he mocked. “You think I never thought about it? You think i don’t think about it every shitty second of my fucking life? I thought they were safe. But they’re been found. They’re their hostage for seven years. Seven years. The boss said if I ever show up without the cash, he’d kill them. I know he would. This guy is no joke.”

 

“Take them back by force, then.”

 

“You speak as you knew. Just shut up,” he said with an unpleasant laugh.

 

“I may not know this boss of yours, but I know if you haven’t spent your life here drinking, you could have found a gang and take back your family.”

 

Crab ran to them and grabbed them by the collar, raising his fist, but this time, with a deft move, Chrollo freed themselves. “Look at you. lashing at a child who did nothing wrong.”

 

“Nothing wrong? All this mess is  _ your _ fault!”

 

“No, it’s yours. You shouldn’t have antagonized someone stronger than you, for your own profit, endangering your family who were your responsibility. You sold your loyalty, fine. But you should have been ready to face the consequences, and you didn’t. ”

 

“Shut up!” He knocked off the chair in anger.. “Shut up, you know nothing! I just wanted to have a good life! Money must be shared, and when rich people don’t want to share, you have to steal! Some people has so much money it becomes morally yours. This money was mine, and too bad for the people I killed for it! They shouldn’t have valued their cash more than their life!”

 

“I agree. I know. But you’re still at fault. You’re still alive, your family too, and you pity yourself for nothing. And you should have explained to me. It’s also your fault if I didn’t know what this money was for. You were responsible for me, so I needed to know. You kept a vital information for yourself. It was a mistake.”

 

Crab looked like he was choking on the spot. “How dare you? Look at this little brat who lectures me? What do you know about life? About me? I did everything right. You’re still alive with all your limbs, you know how to read, you have manners. This is everything I was supposed to give you.”

 

“And you were paid for it.” understood Chrollo. “At every birthday.”

 

“Of course. I wouldn’t do it for free.”

 

“Who paid you?”

 

“Who cares?”

 

“I do.”

 

“Then don’t.” 

 

Crab pushed Chrollo asides and took his mattress under his arm, his curtain, and threw it out.

 

“What are you doing with my stuff?”

 

Crab remained silent. He took the tin box where Chrollo tidied up their summer clothes.

“Where are the other kids?” he asked.

Crab took his notebook and pencils, that joined the mattress outside.

 

“You talked about a four hundreds millions jennies debt. There was only one hundred in the crate. You’re doing this with several children, right? That’s why I never see you around? You’re with them?”

 

Crab took a bottle in a hole in the ground and unsealed it. He sat at the table, took a swallow, took his harmonica and blowed whining sounds. Chrollo understood he was wasting his breath. He took the box, the notebook, slipped a pencil in his pocket, chose a shirt on the tin can, lifted up the little mattress over his head, and walked away, the faltering sounds of the harmonica fading at every step.

 

This place wasn’t his anymore.


	5. songs and signs

Chrollo stared at his things on the ground. It was everything that had made his life easier so far. A child adroitly stole his carnet and ran away. He didn’t try to chase him. He didn’t even think about it. It was hard to focus - a sticky feeling bogged down his thoughts. It wasn’t exactly sadness, it was certainly not shock. Just a sense of loss he had never experienced before. Not worst, not harder. Just different. Just another way to lose everything, that he classified next to all the ways he already had lost everything.

Another kid stole his summer clothes and Chrollo shook himself. Feitan was waiting for him, he was unsafe for the moment, it was all that mattered. The sticky feelings remained - but he was determined. He had no time to care about material things.

He took the mattress, though. He didn’t really knew why. Feitan and him had to built a home of their own, and he was feeling like a home must have a mattress. Their own place, their own frontier between inside and outside, between sense of belonging and sense of danger, even if it was only a line drawn in the ground, and an undersized mattress in the middle.

He was a Wanderer again. 

He had read many books that started like this. Having a family seemed to be the default in the outside world, and being an orphan was enough of a disaster to justify a story about it. These stories often ended happily. Chrollo wondered why. No orphan he knew had a happy ending. Their ending came over way too early to be considered happy.

He thought books were like museums for happy people. How  people have to be happy to find distraction into somebody else’s tragedy. They may lived lives he could never comprehend, they may value themselves in a way he could never relate.

He took a detour to avoid the lake. He didn’t want to come upon the probably still furious lake keepers, especially the one-eyed woman. The lake was far on his left but he squatted anyway, bending the mattress over his head to hide his face. He was walking tip toes. He was wary of the lake keeper good hearing.

“Chrollo? Is that you?” said a feminine voice in his back.

He threw the mattress at her face and ran. But he couldn’t get far. Three solid men clutched him. Chrollo lashed out at them, kicked their knees, bite their wrist, but they didn’t seemed to be bothered.

“Leave him alone!” shouted the woman angrily. “Don’t you see you’re scaring him? You’re gonna hurt him with your dirty paws!”

She came upon them and the men let Chrollo go immediately. He looked up at the woman. She wasn’t a lake keeper, or anything alike. Chrollo had never seen a woman like her. She wore clean and good manufactured clothes, was talking with a singing accent. Her face had a general expression of softness. She bent a knee to face him. She had an endearing look. She softly caress his forehead, lifting up Chrollo’s bang, and smiled.

“Finally, we found you again. I worried so much when I found out Pete let you go.”

“Pete?”

“You call him Crab, I think. He said you ran away, and I don’t know why, but whatever your problem was, I can assure you it’s over.” She leaned closer to him and much to his surprise, kissed him on both cheeks. “I’m a little early, but I couldn’t wait! Happy birthday Chrollo! I’m your mother.”

____________________________________________________

Hidden behind the lake’s reeds, Clémence was observing. Chrollo was as little as a pea from this distance, and she probably could have lost him if he wasn’t holding up that mattress. She saw him walking a curved but clear way, she saw the strange woman talking to him, she saw the tall men grabbing him and Chrollo being helpless against them, she saw the woman bending and kissing him.

Clémence looked in the direction Chrollo was walking. She saw a frail string of fire smoke hang in the sky. She checked the wind direction, and spotted a hill.

She silently slipped out her hideout and kept on walking.

She knew where Feitan was.

____________________________________________________

Chrollo blinked. He observed her. She had long, silky blond hair, a golden complexion and hazel eyes. Chrollo had seldom seen his own face, but he recognized nothing about him in her. 

He had never pictured how a reunion with his mother would look like, mostly because he thought she was dead. But if he had, he probably had imagined he’d be drawn to her, or at least feel a new warmth deep down his chest. But he was feeling nothing. This woman was a stranger, and ‘mother’ just a word, like it had always been.

The men were looking around, with the characteristic general glance of bodyguards. One had flamboyant ginger hair, and a strange lump in his lower back, as if he was hiding something under his clothes. The woman looked both excited and nervous, as if she was feeling tested by him, even though Chrollo just looked at her out of pure curiosity.

“Where you’ve been?” was the first question that crossed his mind.

“Well, it’s… complicated. I’ll tell you during the travel. We have a long journey.”

“We’re going somewhere?”

“We live in a remote country, in the Lukso province. Do you know where it is? You may have studied it at school.”

“I don’t go to school.”

“Ho, it’s the holiday season?”

“No, I don’t go to school at all. It’s too expensive.”

The woman’s smile froze: “We gave Pe… Crab everything he asked for your education. It was supposed to be far enough.”

“Ho. So you’re the person who paid Crab to keep me alive.”

“We didn’t pay Crab. We paid your education, your food, your health. I can’t believe you don’t even go to school!” she yelled, then she rose a hand to her mouth: “Ho sorry, I didn’t mean to yell, sorry I’m not angry at you, don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” he said.

He was still observing the woman. She looked nice, and sweet, and he was receiving more parental attention for a couple of minutes than in his life-time. Her appearance supposed she eated healthy, and on a daily basis. She looked eager to be appreciated by him. Maybe she felt guilty for her abandoning. This could be used.

Maybe he had something valuable to offer to Feitan after all.

He stretched his arm and checked its shadow on the ground. “I’m sorry, but I have an important thing to do. I’m quite in a hurry. Tell me where I can reach you again. Mom.” He had added this last word by chance, but the woman looked like she was about to cry.

“Ho sure, I’m not here to disturb you! Keep on walking, we follow you.”

“I’d rather you don’t.” Feitan had told him to come back alone. He didn’t want to imagine what would be his reaction if he ever came back with four adults.

He took his mattress again and a man stopped him. “Let me take this for you,” he said, forcing out a difficult smile, like every adult who didn’t like to talk to children. Chrollo tried to take his mattress back, but the woman who called herself his mother interfered.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and Chrollo knew they were trying to make his mattress as an hostage. People outside Meteor always thought the locals cared much more about material things than they did. “But it’s so easy to lose children here. I don’t want to lose you again,” she explained.

“You didn’t lose me, you abandoned me.”

He turned his back to walk to Feitan, and didn’t realized how dramatic his move may look for the woman. He clearly heard her gasp and her race to him even he was barely a couple of steps ahead : “I didn’t abandoned you! I’d never do this! I may not be your biological mother, but I waited for this moment so long. I didn’t carry you, but my heart had a five years old pregnancy.”

“Why you didn’t come and get me sooner, then?” It wasn’t a reproach. He was just curious.

“A stupid law of my clan,” she sighted. “The elder sibling must have a child before the younger ones are allowed to have their own. You have a cousin, he’s nine months old. His name’s Kurap…”

“Wait, it doesn’t fit.” Chrollo stopped and faced her. “Crab told me he was paid for seven years. And if my cousin is nine months old, it means you could have get me last year. You’re not coming for me.”

“I had to wait for you to be available.”

“What does this mea…?”

A man suddenly grabbed her arm and dragged her back. “We need to talk.”

Chrollo could listen the murmurs behind him. He could feel a tension in the group. He went on walking again, his senses on alert. He had to find a way to leave them behind, but the landscape here hardly lend itself to. He looked around in the hope to find a way to escape.

On his left he saw kids playing. He recognized the excitable little boy who had been sent to him by Clémence, the day she cornered Feitan into his dent. Clémence may be around, because the kids were chilling and singing, as if no danger could reach them.

_ “Crying in shadows, with ruby like tears wept _ _   
_ _ The angels appeared while small children slept…” _

The song kept covered by the men voices, visibly irked:  “Pete had obviously kept the money for himself. The kid isn’t suitable, we’re wasting our time.”

“He seems to be in good health. Plus he’s courageous. I don’t need more.” answered the lady visibly irritated.

“He’s short.”

“He’s average.”

“He hasn’t been fed well. Pete had done a crappy work.” A man walked to Chrollo, grabbed his shoulder, made him spin and shove his fingers into his mouth : “Show me your teeth. Ouch!” He pulled out his fingers quickly. “He bite me!”

“I hope he did!” yelled the lady while Chrollo spited in disgust. “He’s not a horse!”

“He’s a breeder. What difference?”

_ “Opening your tenth gift, you’ll undoubtedly find _ _   
_ _ That unheard voices were counting down your time…” _

The lady seemed to choke out of indignation : “How dare you talking about a child this way?” She tried to kneel before Chrollo again but he walked past her.  “Ho sweetie, I’m so sorry, they are terrible, I’m sorry you had to whiteness this, I promise this is not what I wanted,” and she tries to hug him, but he freed himself.

 

“I’d rather you don’t do that.”

He looked around, but no hide in sight. And the look the men kept on him didn’t mean any good. He had an eery feeling.

_ “So watch out your loved ones, and whisper your farewell _

_ Because even angels fly their way down to hell...” _

 

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

“Ho sweetheart, didn’t Pete explain you anything? You’ve been chosen to join our community. You’ll have a family, a real name, a real house. Don’t you want that? isn’t it what you ever dreamt of?”

“Do you have museums?”

The question disconcerted the woman. “... Yes? We have one? And you can visit it anytime. You can travel, too.”

“And eat all the food in the world?”

The question seemed to move the woman: “Yes, all the food you want.”

“Okay then. I follow you. But two conditions.”

“Anything you want.”

“First, the men behind you are gone. Right now. I don’t like them.”

“You don’t even know them.”

“So?”

“OK. You heard? Go away.” shouted the woman to them. “I’m sorry, i didn’t think they’d scare you.”

“They’re not scaring me. I just don’t like them. Second condition. You adopt my friend Feitan, so he’s my brother.”

“What kind of sign your friend has on his forehead?”

“He doesn’t have any.”

The lady shook her head: “So I’m sorry, he can’t come with us.”

“So I’m not coming either. Farewell, madam, sirs.”

He turned his back and speeded up. He wanted to leave this place, real quick. Too bad for the mattress. It didn’t matter that much, after all. The most important was to be safe, and to be with Feitan. He still had the taste of the man’s fingers in his mouth and another taste, like copper, at the idea that if he was late, Feitan would think he changed his mind, think he abandoned him, and had left without waiting for him.

_ “And look for the bloody tears that line the floors _ _   
_ _ If you find them too late, they soon might be yours…” _

Chrollo was a curious boy, who like to wonder about different questions. But he didn’t wonder why three men were accompanying the woman. He understood he should have, when a first man caught him and immobilized him in his strong arms. A second man man gagged him, and seized his legs, and put them in a big jute bag the ginger haired man pulled out of his clothes. All happened in less of a second. They were prepared and trained. 

Just before the bag reached up his eyes, before it was knotted above his head and his helpless body, he just had the time to see the lady’s scarlet eyes, and her voice :

“This is not an option.”

____________________________________________________

Thousands years ago, the Kurta clan seeked refuge on a remote mountain, safe from collectors and the deadly price they valued their eyes.  Around forty Kurtas had survived the last massacre that decided their exode, and after three generations, everyone was blood related to anyone in a way or another. They understood their protection would be their damnation.

To avoid consanguinity, young people searched partners in the nearest cities, came back with a spouse and rose happy families. To the day when one of the spouse appeared to be an informer for collectors. Fifty four Kurtas had been murdered and enucleated this night, including the informer’s child.

So the Elders decided that no one would ever be allowed to explore the world, unless they were able to hide their origins. It was also decided that young couples would adopt at least one child, rise them as their own, reek them of their culture, until they became a real Kurta. The Elders still remembered the genetic decay that threatened their clan, and decided that only the strongest, prettiest, smartest of all children would be adopted. They had to be worthy of the Kurta clan by the age of ten.

It was difficult at first. The births were decreasing. Young Kurtas had a hard time taking care of their elders. Then they heard about Meteor City. A whole place unknown of the world, where orphans were more common than families. Where family sense was like nowhere else, both absolute and absent. A place many citizens were so eager to leave that they’d accept any price. 

They had found their salvation.

____________________________________________________

Chrollo was tossed about on a hardy back, thrown over a shoulder like a bag. Ropes encircled his body and firmly held his limbs. He was writhing, trying by any way to squirm out of the ties, or to split out his gag and ask for help.

Chrollo quickly found himself exhausted. It was hard to breathe with a gag in this jute bag. He stayed still, catching his breath..

“Good booy,” said the man who was carrying him. “You understood it was useless, right?”

Chrollo can hardly heard him through the noises of his racing heart and his difficult breath. He had to make a plan. He didn’t know for how long he’d be kept prisoner like this. Maybe until this remote province they talked about. The travel could be long, the return even more. And meanwhile, Feitan would be alone, wounded, a fierce fighter after him, feeling betrayed, abandoned, by the first person he ever proposed his trust...

The man startled when Chrollo thrashed about harder than ever.

____________________________________________________

Feitan looked down the hill. No one in sight. The stick’s shadow had joined the mark. The time was out. Chrollo wasn’t back yet. Feitan had to leave as he said.

He erased the mark and draw another one, a little on the left, and kept on waiting.

He looked down at the new mark and snorted. He didn’t know what kind of test he just took, and if he passed it or not. But he was feeling a little lighter. 

He heard a step sound behind him and rolled on the curtain, his eyes closed, pretending to sleep. No way Chrollo knew he was watching out for his return. Another step sound came closer, muffled as if Chrollo was trying to approach silently.

It had been his pure instinct alone that put him on his feet. He had felt something was off before he could tell what.

Standing, clenched fists, his guard high, he blinked to the sun’s reflect on Clémence’s blades, pointed to him.

____________________________________________________

Chrollo had counted 11 534 steps when the man carrying him stopped. Chrollo heard other voices, adult and children. They had joined another group. A child was crying and a male voice tried to calm them. Another child was asking curious questions about her future house and her siblings. She seemed to leave with them by her own will.

Chrollo wished he could listen more, but the woman who called herself his “mother” couldn’t stop talking to him, whispering calming words, repeating she was sorry. She tried to pet him through the bag, and it was the worst.  Chrollo wished his mouth was free just to tell her to fuck off. 

They were waiting for something, and were angry it was late. The woman couldn’t stop telling Chrollo it would be over soon. The curious girl asked why someone was in a bag. She wanted to see them. Chrollo writhed harder to encourage her to insist. The adults around seemed to be eager to please the children and maybe he could use that. But the man who carried him said it was an indocile dog who bite him. The woman whispered angry words.

After a time that felt like centuries, Chrollo heard a relieved sight in all the adult group and the noise of engines coming over. He smelled an unpleasant smell of gas. He felt his heart falling into his stomach. If he got stuck in a car, not only he had no chance to free himself in time, but maybe he could never go back to Meteor City at all. It was now or never. And he was painfully aware it couldn’t be “now”.

He felt agitation, adults talking loud in a language he didn’t know, the child crying more than ever. Then an adult screamed, a piercing, and oddly brief cry.

Chrollo was dropped in the floor with no care, the impact resonating in his bones. He heard the voice of his so called “mother” stutter a confused plea. The curious girl screamed : “Not this one! It’s my dad!” The man who carried Chrollo yelled in anger, and a weird noise cut him short. Something hit Chrollo in his cheek, through the bag. He felt something wet running to his chin, and smelled blood.

“Leave him alone! Please leave him alone! Please not my son!” The so-called mother sounded terrified. He felt arms trying to hold him and carry him away, but she was too weak. She screamed when she got pushed aside.

The rope around his body fell off, and the knot that closed the bag got cut. Chrollo blinked at the sudden light. 

Around him all was blood, smoke, and disarticulated bodies. The three men that kidnapped him lied dead, their throat cut open. Four other men and two women were agonizing. The cars were destroyed, one was burning. A man in shock was holding tight against him the curious girl and the crying boy, covering their eyes.

The woman who called herself his mother was on the ground. Her leg was wounded and left a line of blood behind her as she was crawling to him : “Don’t touch him… Don’t touch my child…” She stretched a hand to him. 

Chrollo slammed it aside, and stood up. He looked down to the woman:

“We accept everything…”

Feitan came out of the smoke and stood next to him. His blade was dripping with blood. 

The woman rose her arms in protection. Chrollo turned his face to avoid the spurt of blood when Feitan’s blade swooped down on her.

“... so take nothing from us.”

____________________________________________________

Chrollo helped the surviving man and his daughter to start up the less damaged car. Feitan was siphoning fuel out of another one, fulling a jerrycan he found in the boot.

The fuel lapped at every step during their long walk back. The crying boy accompany them until he got his bearings and found the way back to the inner city. Feitan’s limp got worst, and Chrollo searched in the rubbish a way of cane for him. He finally found an umbrella.

Further south a large column of dark smoke clouded the sky. Other cars were burning. The wind turned and Chrollo spotted smoke further west, at the other side of the city, as thin as a scratch at this distance. There were at least three groups of children abductors, scattered all around Meteor. They all had been stopped.

When Clémence appeared in front of them, covered with blood and smelling like smoke, Chrollo immediately dropped the jerrycan and stood before Feitan in protection. But Feitan put a calming hand on his shoulder, walked to Clémence, and bring her back her blade. They nodded at each others, and they kept on walking their respective paths.

Clémence had no way follow all the Blood Weepers’ groups, and she knew they had cars. She had to ask for help. She had to chose an ally strong enough to face several fighters. In Meteor City, it wasn’t that hard to find. But she wanted to be sure her ally would rush after the abductors without a question, and without being corrupted when they’d find them. A fighter who would defend an abducted kid like they’d defend their own life.

So she asked Feitan.

The gas stinked up the atmosphere all around, and left behind a reeking trail when they came back to Chrollo’s native district. The narrow streets were almost empty. Only one thin smoke trickle was still waving, above the place Chrollo used to call “home”. 

When they entered, the stench of alcohol and sweat almost covered the gas’ odor. Pete was snoring on the table, dead drunk.

Chrollo spreaded the gas all around the small hut. Feitan opened the crate and took a wad of bills. Chrollo handed him his lighter, and Feitan sat in on fire.

The blaze spread quickly. The flames rose bright and high, turning the corrugated iron red-hot.

Pete died without a sound, intoxicated by the smoke before the flames could touch him. He passed in his sleep, dreaming of his family, of his wife and daughter welcoming him with open arms, kissing him, laughing with him, and they forgave him, for all these years he drank and lied, lied to the kids, lied to himself, all these years he pretended he gathered money, pretended he had a life to defend, pretended he never received this letter, seven years ago, and the photos, the photos that he burnt and pretended he never seen. they forgave him for he failed to protect them, they forgave him for what he never forgave himself, and the guilt and denial pushed him to drink and act like he never knew his wife and daughter were already dead.

Sat on a near roof, Chrollo and Feitan watched the flames spreading sparks in the sky, like a moving constellation, a story written by shooting stars, whispering for them a new tale of the Fallen Angel and the Ravening Beast.


	6. epilog : water and ink

“Clémence! Clémence! Tell us a story! A story!”

It was sunset, the kid just finished their dinner and they were already excited. It has been a long time they hadn’t see her, and wouldn’t leave her alone before they get her total attention. The cook blinked at her, and said he would clear the long table and she could go.

“What story tonight?” asked Clémence as if she didn’t know.

“The Ravenous Beast!” they all said. It was their favorite.

“Is it true you met it?” asked a little boy. The other kids shushed him : “One thing at a time!”

Clémence put the toddlers in their bed, paid the wet nurse with clothes, and joined the kid in the playroom. They were more than fifty and all kindly sat on the carpets. She wrapped them in large curtains, and they gathered around her chair.

Clémence knew the story at heart. She knew the beginning, as it had been told to her when she was hardly older than the children around, she knew the end.

And she knew every time a story ended, another started.

She was telling stories since she was young enough to repeat them, and now, at twenty four, she was a pretty good story teller. The story occurred ten years ago, but thanks to her astonishing memory, the special talent that caused her to be marked by the Kurta, she remembered every details. She had told this particular story so many times that some kids were able to mimic her words in the same time as her. 

“Once upon a time, a creature that couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be smelled, couldn’t be heard, trampled the ground of our loved city…”

Even if the kids were too young to have lived the dark moments she was narrating, they shivered when she impersonated the terrifying scream, the menacing presence in her back, the hungry nights when the Beast had devoured everything.

They always get excited when she came at their favorite part.

“... So it sought refuge in a dent, a cave dig in the dirt, and plunged deeply into its darkness, its element, its safety. Or so…”

“Or so it thought!” yelled the kids in the same time.

“The dent was actually the maw of a even more terrible creature, the Dirt Worm. In one bite - yum! - the beast was eaten. You know how to recognize a cave from a Dirk Worm, right?”

“Yes!” answered the youngest kids in unison. “A dirt worm breathes, not a cave!”

Clémence nodded. Older kids smiled. They knew what the story meant : never go into a cave when the wind was rising.

“After the Dirt Worm ate the Beast, it felt thirsty. They dig itself under the dirt layer, and slided to the lake. It met the Fallen Angel, prisoner of the water, sighing for the night they lost. The Worm and the Angel saluted with respect, and then the Angel asked, ‘What is this song so beautiful that comes from your body? I’ve never heard such a more delicate melody.’

‘A melody?’ said the Worm. “It’s a strident howl screamed by a lonely soul.’

‘This soul is alike mine,’ understood the Angel. ‘Maybe it’s the one that is designed to bring me back to my night home. Give it to me. You’re a creature of flesh, you have no use for souls.’

The worm agreed, and slowly breathed out the soul. The Angel welcomed the Beast, inviting it into their lake.”

“And something magical happened,” said all the kids at the same time.

“The Beast and the Angel, both lonely, souls alike, but of different natures, blended like water and ink, both transformed, while both the same, and acceded to another state.”

“Because real human nature is what stands between the angel and the beast.” answered two kids.

Clémence blinked. She had never heard this addition before. The children were making this story their own, as it should be.

“While coming out of the lake with their new body,” she continued, “the angel hit five stars reflexions, that marked their forehead. It was the remaining memory of a destiny they escaped, and the symbol of their own will. The beast acquired language, stopped howling and started speaking. They learnt that your true home is not where you were born, not where you hide in fear, but where you feel safe and aren’t betrayed. Their new home was their friendship.”

But this part of the story wasn’t exciting enough for the kids, who felt impatient and wanted Clémence to skip it to go to more action :

“Tell us when they defied the Council!”

“Tell us how they canceled the unfair birth law!”

“Tell us when they got banned but didn’t care!”

“Tell us when they left Meteor City to seek fortune!”

Clémence rolled her eyes : “I’ll tell if you ever let me speak!” 

“Is it true they’re real ?” asked a worrying little girl.

Clémence nodded : “Everything is true.”

“Will they ever come back to Meteor City some day?” All the children anxiously waited her answer.

Clémence took out of her pocket a little card. A twelve legged spider on its face, and  the day’s date on the other side.

“I’m pretty sure they will.”

She put the kids in bed the best she could. The orphanage had seventy-four beds, but today, eighty-one kids showed up. Some were feeling sick after they drank the lake’s water. Now that the Fallen Angel story had came to an end, they were feeling more adventurous around water and it wasn’t always a good thing. They’d have to make another story.

She took today’s informations from the nurses, and gave a few orders for the day after. She greeted the night nurse who started his work. 

Then Clémence came outside the orphanage, to smoke a cigarette in the night peace. The sky was clear, and the first stars broke through twilight. Clémence stared at the South Cross. She always enjoyed the calm after work. Her today’s story was done.

But every time a story ended, another started.

“Nice story,” said a voice behind her. “You made it yourself?”

Clémence breathed in a puff of smoke, without looking. “Stories for children are made by children. Adults make stories for what they hope children are. Children make story for who they are for real. I told them the events. They turned them into a story.”

“And why did they come with this story in particular?” asked Chrollo.

Clémence watched the smoke blending into the night : “It gives them hope. I don’t remember we had a story like this when we were young. It was all about fear and danger. Even the Great Carpenter story can be impressive. The younger ones always ask what would happen if the stars rusted.”

Chrollo smiled. “Not only the younger ones. What about a new nice story, then. Another story that ends happily. I can tell you one.”

“I’m too old to be told stories.”

“We’re never too old. As we grow up, we often reconsider our old stories, even if we’re sure we’ve drained them long ago. Like I reconsidered your story six years ago.”

Clémence frowned, drawing on her cigarette. “You were gone six years ago. We didn’t even met once at this time.”

“I was gone, learning interesting things. Before that, I thought I knew your story. The little girl who had been so brave, and so lucky, that she survived her self amputation. Now, I know you’re the little girl who had been so brave, and so talented, she was a self-taught nen user at eight. And a lot of things changed.”

He leaned against the wall near her. He took her cigarette off her fingers and took a puff. 

“Just out of curiosity… You’re an enhancer, right?” he asked.

“Right.”

“What’s your ability? No obligation to answer.”

“Enhanced Empathy.”

Chrollo looked at her in surprise. “That’s unusual. I’d thought you’d have an attack skill.”

Clémence rose an eyebrow : “Do you  _ really _ think I need an attack skill.”

Chrollo smiled. “You’re right and I’m a fool.”

“I need to know my kids’ needs. So I look their eyes. This is the condition.”

“You read into them?” asked Chrollo, bringing her cigarette back.

“No i just look  _ at _ their eyes, not  _ into _ them. Some of my kids would hate that. I meet so many children, so different situations. Sometimes they’re too young to explain their need, or too in pain for an examination. Or they can’t speak, or don’t know our language. I look their eyes, and I know. i can do that from afar. Sometimes they don’t even notice me. That’s the ability I chose.”

“A very useful one. I guess you’d have killed Feitan ten years ago without it.”

“I looked his eyes. And a thirst for friendship is not what you expect in a beast’s mind.”

Chrollo smiled. “We’re lucky Feitan is too far to hear you. Although a blushing Fei is always a rare and endearing show.”

“So he’s here.”

“We’re all here. Waiting for you.”

“I don’t want to be away from the kids too long.”

“No one asks you to. After all, this mission is for them.”

Clémence looked up at him. “The Blood Weepers?”

Chrollo nodded silently.

“It’s said they hide from the world. How did you hear where their location was? ” Clémence asked.

“From our newcomer, Shalnark. He’s from there.”

Clémence blinked in surprise. “You hired a Kurta?”

“Technically, yes. He was adopted and passed every ritual passages. But he’s not a red-eyed one, if it’s your question. He used to live in Meteor City, has been kidnapped, and never forgave it. He’s marked on his forehead too, and hides it with his bang. Don’t question him about it, he hates that. I think he’s upset he didn’t get the middle spot for ‘beauty’.” 

Clémence snorted, but she asked in all seriousness : “What do we do with the non red-eyed ones. They’re our people.”

“They are if they chose to be. If they attack us, kill them. If not, do whatever. Their eyes worth nothing anyway.” Chrollo turned and the stones of the orphanage’s wall. “And I see your previous loots are already spent.”

“Pakunoda and Franklin helped out. But it’s not enough. We’ll build an extension.”

“With the money we’ll get from the people who used to steal our kids.”

“I like the irony.”

“So you’re in?”’ asked Chrollo.

Clémence went back to the orphanage entrance, taking a clothe off the hook.

“I’m always in.”

She put off her overalls, revealing on her right arm the tattoo of a twelve-legged spider with the number “eight” in the middle. 

Chrollo and her walked to the fluttering light of a fire on a hill, drawing the shadows of their eleven companions.

Clémence never had her fun as a child. But now she had nurses to deputise for her. She didn’t have to work as hard as before. She could make-up for the lost time.

She walked up the hill to her friends. Feitan saw her first and waved at her. They all turned to her, greeted her, and invited her in their games and plays. 

 

 

 


End file.
